February 8, 2010
National Defense Research Institute // RAND Corporation

Abstract:

A critical question surrounding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is Iraq’s internal security and stability. Although the U.S. withdrawal plan is designed with care to avoid weakening Iraq’s security, the end of U.S. occupation may alter the strategies of the main Iraqi political actors, each of which has enough armed power to be able to shatter Iraq’s domestic peace. In view of the potential for insecurity in Iraq, the United States cannot afford to take a passive or reactive stance. To anticipate dangers and act purposefully, U.S. policy-makers need a dynamic analytic framework with which to examine the shifting motivations and capabilities of the actors that affect Iraq’s security. This monograph offers such a framework....

February 8, 2010
United States Institute of Peace

Abstract:

The 2009 Afghanistan presidential and provincial council elections were a signi cant setback in the development of democracy in Afghanistan. They were the  rst to be run entirely by Afghan institutions, although with signi cant international  nancial and technical support. Yet despite $490 million in donor funds (including the 2008-09 voter registration exercise) and signi cant input by dozens of international advisers, the elections struggled to meet minimum standards of credibility and acceptability. The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), which was mandated to adjudicate all electoral violations, invalidated more than 1.2 million fraudulent votes in the presidential election— resulting in a less than 50 percent majority for any candidate and requiring a runo between the incumbent President Hamid Karzai and the runner up Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. (The second round was not held because Dr. Abdullah withdrew from the race, citing the lack of fraud reduction mechanisms as one of his main reasons.)...

February 8, 2010
Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre

Abstract:

Despite the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement 9 January 2005, which formally ended the 22-year civil war in Southern Sudan, the frequency and severity of local conflicts increased during 2009. These conflicts are threatening the stability of the South, and ultimately the peace process itself. Widespread insecurity will also make it difficult to hold the planned national elections in April and the 2011 referendum on secession. Land and natural resources are increasingly contested in Southern Sudan and these issues trigger and fuel local violence. The return of internally displaced persons and refugees is also a source of controversy. In addition, partially incompatible interpretations of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army policy of “land belongs to the people” combined with institutional fragmentation further complicate the situation. The underlying drivers of the increased insecurity in Southern Sudan are: a tense political setting; a highly militarised society in terms of access to weapons and a lowered threshold for using violence to settle disputes; and finally, lack of institutional capacity to provide security and to prevent, contain and solve conflict in Southern Sudan. This situation foments the use of violence as a means to further the interests of groups and individuals. The solution lies in a two-stage process starting with short-term robust interventions (combining military deterrence and local systems of negotiation), and effective planning of long-term measures (such as disarmament, land legislation and reform) addressing the underlying factors to this predicament. Only when this first stage is finalised will long-term measures have the desired effect....

February 8, 2010
Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre

Abstract:

Calls for increased Western military support to Yemen to prevent the spread of terrorism are alarming. The cause of Yemen’s political crisis is not the rise of al-Qaeda or a lack of military power, but a gradual erosion of state authority. Kjetil Selvik argues that the survival strategies of the Yemeni regime have contributed to the weakening of the state, triggering a Zaydi Shia rebellion in the north and separatist currents in the south. Seeking to fight al-Qaeda by propping up Ali Abdullah Saleh’s repressive regime is therefore likely to produce counterproductive results. Western governments would be wise not to deepen the country’s crisis by intervening militarily or further strengthening the repressive apparatus of the regime. Trying to enforce state authority in the absence of national unity and political legitimacy is what created the impasse in the first place....

February 8, 2010
South Asia Analysis Group

Abstract:

Pakistani leaders often project Jammu & Kashmir as Pakistan’s jugular vein in justification of their supporting jihadi terrorist groups against India in an attempt to change the status quo in J&K. It is not. Karachi is Pakistan’s jugular vein. It is the economic capital of Pakistan contributing a substantial part of Pakistan’s industrial production and tax revenue. It has Pakistan’s only functioning international port. The Gwadar port, on the Mekran coast of Balochistan, constructed with Chinese assistance and commissioned three years ago, has so far failed to come up to expectations as an alternative to Karachi as an international port due to the continuing Baloch freedom struggle and the inability of the Pakistani authorities to develop the subsidiary infrastructure to connect Gwadar with the other economic centres of Pakistan, particularly in Punjab. Karachi is also of strategic significance not only to Pakistan, but also to the NATO troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is still Pakistan’s most important naval base. Gwadar is being developed as an alternate naval base to reduce the vulnerability of the Pakistan Navy in Karachi, but it is estimated that it will take another five to eight years before Gwadar as a naval base starts functioning in a satisfactory manner....

February 8, 2010
Small Wars Journal

Abstract:

Recent events in Iran involving the questionable election results that placed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into his second term as president have raised the levels of public outcry and consternation both inside Iran and internationally. The political pundits and policymakers are speculating on what this means for the future of Iran and how this situation will end. The debate is premature and largely facile at this point, but what is interesting is that the initial Iranian government reaction to the potential insurgency bubbling up from disgruntled Moussavi supporters provides a well-suited test case for some of the commonly accepted counterinsurgency (COIN) tenants. An embryonic insurgent movement borne of deep resentment against the Iranian government and the de facto rulers of Iran, the Supreme Council, coupled with an extremely harsh COIN reaction creates an experimental situation which allows scholars, practitioners, and policymakers a rare opportunity to analyze, in real time, COIN theory....

February 8, 2010
National Defense Research Institute // RAND Corporation

Abstract:

A critical question surrounding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is Iraq’s internal security and stability. Although the U.S. withdrawal plan is designed with care to avoid weakening Iraq’s security, the end of U.S. occupation may alter the strategies of the main Iraqi political actors, each of which has enough armed power to be able to shatter Iraq’s domestic peace. In view of the potential for insecurity in Iraq, the United States cannot afford to take a passive or reactive stance. To anticipate dangers and act purposefully, U.S. policy-makers need a dynamic analytic framework with which to examine the shifting motivations and capabilities of the actors that affect Iraq’s security. This monograph offers such a framework....

February 8, 2010
Congressional Research Service

Abstract:

This report provides an overview of current issues in U.S.-Palestinian relations and. It also contains an overview of Palestinian society and politics and descriptions of key Palestinian individuals and groups—chiefly the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Palestinian Authority (PA), Fatah, Hamas, and the Palestinian refugee population. [...] The “Palestinian question” is important not only to Palestinians, Israelis, and their Arab state neighbors, but to many countries and non-state actors in the region and around the world— including the United States—for a variety of religious, cultural, and political reasons. U.S. policy toward the Palestinians since the advent of the Oslo process in the early-1990s has been marked by efforts to establish a Palestinian state through a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, counter Palestinian terrorist groups, and establish norms of democracy, accountability, and good governance within the PA. Congressional views of the issue have reflected concern that U.S. bilateral assistance not detrimentally affect Israel’s security by falling into the hands of Palestinian rejectionists who advocate terrorism and violence against Israelis....

February 8, 2010
Congressional Research Service

Abstract:

Al Qaeda (AQ) has evolved into a significantly different terrorist organization than the one that perpetrated the September 11, 2001, attacks. At the time, Al Qaeda was composed mostly of a core cadre of veterans of the Afghan insurgency against the Soviets, with a centralized leadership structure, made up mostly of Egyptians. Most of the organization’s plots either emanated from the top or were approved by the leadership. Some analysts describe pre-9/11 Al Qaeda as akin to a corporation, with Osama Bin Laden acting as an agile Chief Executive Officer issuing orders and soliciting ideas from subordinates. Some would argue that the Al Qaeda of that period no longer exists. Out of necessity, due to pressures from the security community, in the ensuing years it has transformed into a diffuse global network and philosophical movement composed of dispersed nodes with varying degrees of independence. The core leadership, headed by Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, is thought to live in the mountainous tribal belt of northwest Pakistan, where it continues to train operatives, recruit, and disseminate propaganda. But Al Qaeda franchises or affiliated groups active in countries such as Yemen and Somalia now represent critical power centers in the larger movement. Some affiliates receive money, training, and weapons; others look to the core leadership in Pakistan for strategic guidance, theological justification, and a larger narrative of global struggle. Over the past year senior government officials have assessed the trajectory of Al Qaeda to be “less centralized command and control, (with) no clear center of gravity, and likely rising and falling centers of gravity, depending on where the U.S. and the international focus is for that period.” While a degraded corporate Al Qaeda may be welcome news to many, a trend has emerged over the past few years that some view as more difficult to detect, if not potentially more lethal. [...] The focus of this report is on the history of Al Qaeda, actions and capabilities of the organization and non-aligned entities, and an analysis of select regional Al Qaeda affiliates. This report may be updated as events warrant....

February 8, 2010
Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre

Abstract:

Despite the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement 9 January 2005, which formally ended the 22-year civil war in Southern Sudan, the frequency and severity of local conflicts increased during 2009. These conflicts are threatening the stability of the South, and ultimately the peace process itself. Widespread insecurity will also make it difficult to hold the planned national elections in April and the 2011 referendum on secession. Land and natural resources are increasingly contested in Southern Sudan and these issues trigger and fuel local violence. The return of internally displaced persons and refugees is also a source of controversy. In addition, partially incompatible interpretations of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army policy of “land belongs to the people” combined with institutional fragmentation further complicate the situation. The underlying drivers of the increased insecurity in Southern Sudan are: a tense political setting; a highly militarised society in terms of access to weapons and a lowered threshold for using violence to settle disputes; and finally, lack of institutional capacity to provide security and to prevent, contain and solve conflict in Southern Sudan. This situation foments the use of violence as a means to further the interests of groups and individuals. The solution lies in a two-stage process starting with short-term robust interventions (combining military deterrence and local systems of negotiation), and effective planning of long-term measures (such as disarmament, land legislation and reform) addressing the underlying factors to this predicament. Only when this first stage is finalised will long-term measures have the desired effect....

February 4, 2010
United Nations Children's Fund

Abstract:

The Humanitarian Action Report is UNICEF's only publication dealing specifically with the needs of children and women in emergencies. It spotlights crises that require exceptional support, and additional funding, to save lives and protect children from harm in an increasingly challenging humanitarian environment. This year's report – subtitled 'Partnering for children in emergencies' – says the world is seeing crises exacerbated by larger trends, such as climate change and the international financial downturn, that are beyond the capacity of any one agency to address. The report appeals for nearly $1.2 billion in international donor funding for emergency-response efforts in 28 countries covering six regions – from Eastern Europe to Africa to Asia to Latin America. The funding will be used to support a greater emphasis on emergency preparedness, early warning, disaster risk reduction and rapid recovery....

January 29, 2010
Households in Conflict Network // The Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex

Abstract:

We analyse the effect of violence and rebellion on the evolution of household welfare. We collected new panel data for Burundi (1999-2007) in which we reinterviewed original as well as newly formed households (split-offs). We use several definitions of the household as unit of analysis and test for resource pooling between parental and split-off households. Focusing on the effect of civil war, we find that villagelevel violence, measured as the number of battle-related deaths or wounded reduces consumption growth by 9% for every 25 casualties. Joining an armed rebel group was a lucrative livelihood strategy: households of which at least one member joined an armed group experienced 41% higher growth in welfare over the study period. Results are robust to alternative variables of civil war shocks and model specifications, including household fixed effects and initial household fixed effects....

January 26, 2010
Households in Conflict Network // Institute of Development Studies // University of Sussex

Abstract:

We investigate one of the world’s most pernicious forms of exploitation: child soldiering. Most theories can be captured by a principal-agent model that incorporates punishments, indoctrination, and age-varying productivity. For rebel leaders, we show it is almost always optimal to coerce rather than reward children, and that leaders will tend to forcibly recruit children when punishment and supervision are cheap, when children’s outside options are poor, and when rebel leaders are resource-constrained. To see which mechanisms dominate in practice, we interview and survey former members of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army, who provide a cruel natural experiment that reveals how children and adults respond to coercive incentives. The evidence suggests that children are more easily indoctrinated and disoriented than adults, but are less effective guerrillas; hence the optimal targets of coercion are young adolescents. We confirm predications of the model on a new “cross-rebel” dataset and suggest policy solutions....

January 21, 2010
United Kingdom Home Office // United Kingdom Border Agency

Abstract:

The Report aims to provide a brief summary of the source material identified, focusing on the main issues raised in asylum and human rights applications. It is not intended to be a detailed or comprehensive survey. For a more detailed account, the relevant source documents should be examined directly.[...] The Report is a collation of material produced by a number of reliable information sources. In compiling the Report, no attempt has been made to resolve discrepancies between information provided in different source documents. For example, different source documents often contain different versions of names and spellings of individuals, places and political parties, etc. COI Reports do not aim to bring consistency of spelling, but to reflect faithfully the spellings used in the original source documents. Similarly, figures given in different source documents sometimes vary and these are simply quoted as per the original text. The term ‘sic’ has been used in this document only to denote incorrect spellings or typographical errors in quoted text; its use is not intended to imply any comment on the content of the material....

January 20, 2010
Human Rights Watch

Abstract:

This report is Human Rights Watch’s twentieth annual review of human rights practices around the globe. It summarizes key human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide, drawing on events through November 2009. Each country entry identifies significant human rights issues, examines the freedom of local human rights defenders to conduct their work, and surveys the response of key international actors, such as the United Nations, European Union, Japan, the United States, and various regional and international organizations and institutions. The Report includes country reports, in addition to the following four reports: "The Abusers’ Reaction: Intensifying Attacks on Human Rights Defenders, Organizations, and Institutions" by Kenneth Roth; "Civilian Protection and Middle East Armed Groups: In Search of Authoritative Local Voices" by Joe Stork; "Abusing Patients: Health Providers’ Complicity in Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment" by Joseph Amon; "In the Migration Trap: Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Europe" by Simone Troller....

February 3, 2010
United States Senate Committee on Intelligence

Abstract:

Blair's testimony discusses: far-reaching impact of the cyber threat; the changing threat to the global economy; terrorists under pressure: terrorist threat to homeland remains (includes discussion on Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and comments on US "homegrown jihadists"); the growing proliferation threat; Afghanistan (including the Taliban-dominated insurgency, potential ties to Al-Qa'ida, security and governance issues, and the Afghan drug trade); Pakistan: Turning against domestic extremists; further regional and country updates; mass killings; climate change; strategic health challenges and threats; and international organized crime....

February 3, 2010
International Alert // The Initiative for Peacebuilding

Abstract:

As climate change unfolds, one of its effects is a heightened risk of violent conflict. This risk is at its sharpest in poor, badly governed countries, many of which have a recent history of armed conflict. This both adds to the burdens faced by deprived and vulnerable communities and makes it harder to reduce their vulnerability by adapting to climate change. This paper outlines the climate-conflict interlinkages and the challenges involved in responding to their combined challenge. Establishing the overall goal of international policy on adaptation as helping people in developing countries adapt successfully to climate change even where there is state fragility or conflict risk, the paper makes and explains eight specific policy recommendations: 1. Adaptation to climate change needs to be conflict sensitive – responding to the needs of the people, involving them in consultation, taking account of power distribution and social order, and avoiding pitting groups against each other. 2. Peacebuilding needs to be climate-proof, ensuring that its progress is not disrupted by the effects of climate change that could and should be anticipated. 3. Shifts towards a low-carbon economy must be supportive of development and peace – unlike what happened with the rapid move to biofuels. 4. Steps must be taken to strengthen poor countries’ social capacity to understand and manage climate and conflict risks. 5. Greater efforts are needed to plan for and cope peacefully with climate-related migration. 6. Institutions responsible for climate change adaptation need to be structured and staffed in a way that reflects the specific challenges of the climate-conflict interlinkages. For this to be possible, institutions must restructure in such a way as to maximise the participation of ordinary people and build accountable and transparent public institutions. 7. Development policy-making and strategic planning henceforth, at both international and national levels, need to integrate with peaceful climate adaptation planning. Compartmentalisation between these areas is no longer viable. 8. A large-scale systematic study of the likely costs of adaptation is required, including the social and political dimensions along with economic sectors that have thus far been left out of most estimates....

January 26, 2010
African Centre for for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes

Abstract:

This report emanates from an exploratory study conducted in 2009 by the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), in collaboration with the Madariaga-College of Europe Foundation. With a focus on Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Sudan, the study solicited views and perspectives on the role that natural resources and the environment can play in complex conflict situations. As part of the exploratory study, ACCORD carried out desktop research and interviews with representatives of civil society organisations (CSOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international institutions in March and April 2009. While this report does not aim to capture all the outcomes from those discussions, salient aspects, informed by the results of the desktop research, have been included. Finally, this exploratory investigation was the first phase of an ACCORD research project on natural resources and conflicts. As such, the report focuses only on key concerns, emphasising specific issues that are part of a complex and widely researched problem. A large proportion of Africans are dependent on natural resources and the environment to subsist. The natural environment is the foundation of livelihoods based on subsistence and commercial farming, animal husbandry, trade and mining. These activities are inextricably linked to the availability of natural resources and the sustainable management of those resources. Factors such as population growth, human movements, current and future land scarcity, rising levels of global consumption and consumerism, climate change and political and social instability all impact on the natural environment and, thereby, on livelihoods. In turn, the allocation, management and exploitation of increasingly limited natural resources can contribute to conflict in Africa. In reviewing the exploratory study and preparing this report, ACCORD observed five main challenges. The challenges relate first to the problem of natural resources and the environment in complex conflict situations, and second, to the actors that can play a constructive role in natural resource, environmental and conflict management....

January 25, 2010
Brookings Institution // Center on International Cooperation, New York University

Abstract:

Globalization has entered a turbulent period. Over the past twenty years, the most significant threats to international security, stability, and prosperity have evolved rapidly. Global systems are now tightly interconnected, with risk proliferating freely across borders. The drivers of change – including population growth, climate change and resource scarcity, a major shift in economic power, and increasing state fragility – produce unpredictable, non-linear effects. Technology continues to diffuse rapidly, while information is corroding traditional hierarchies. Security-related risks have become increasingly asymmetric. Looking across the most important global risks, one sees that the world faces novel challenges (e.g. managing bio-security) and needs to develop both unprecedented institutions (e.g. resilient global carbon markets), and tough mechanisms for enforcement (e.g. for nuclear proliferation or emissions control). Power shifts must be managed both in the short term (economic imbalances) and over the long term (demographic change). There are complex interactions between risks (energy and food security, for example), while insurgent groups have attractive opportunities to disrupt global networks (especially when state weakness and access to these networks coincide). Pressure from these forces builds for long periods with no visible effect, but when released, it triggers abrupt shifts and cascading consequences across interlinked global systems. Shocks, rather than stresses, are the primary triggers of change, as three global crises – the September 11 attacks in 2001, the combined food and oil price spike that peaked in 2008, and the global financial crisis in the same year – have demonstrated over the last decade....

December 9, 2009
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Abstract:

In its First Assessment Report in 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated that the gravest effects of climate change may be those on human mobility. Over the last year, some progress has been made within both the academic and the humanitarian policy community in seeking answers to some basic questions arising from this issue, such as how and where people are displaced, who and how many are displaced, and how (if at all) they are protected. In parallel, work has been done to highlight this issue in the climate change negotiations. The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) provides the common international framework to address the causes and consequences of climate change. In 2007, the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC authoritatively established that human-induced climate change is accelerating and already has severe impacts on the environment and human lives. Although there is not a mono-causal relation between climate change, disasters, displacement and migration, the existence of a clear link between the phenomena is increasingly recognised. This paper presents some initial empirical findings in relation to this link, focusing on two African countries: Somalia and Burundi....

January 29, 2010
International Peace Institute

Abstract:

The relationship between UN member states and UN peace operations is a complex one beset with obstacles—political, technical, and financial, inter alia—that may be best addressed by enhancing the dialogue among concerned parties. Indeed, only member states have the political, financial, and human resources needed to endow a UN mission with the components of success. Similarly, Special Representatives of the Secretary-General (SRSGs), the heads of UN missions, are unique in their ex officio ability to make or break a peace operation, and in that they may significantly enhance an operation’s credibility and effectiveness through measured judgment, strength of character, and onthe- ground acuity. By improving the relationship between these individuals and member states, UN peace operations can be strengthened, thus yielding greater dividends for all concerned, particularly the host-country populace and UN staff. Indeed, the impact on the ground of decisions taken by member states is usually first recognized by SRSGs and their teams....

January 28, 2010
Crisis States Research Centre // London School of Economics // Development Studies Institute

Abstract:

The paper traces the evolution of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) into the present Organisation of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the contribution of both to regional security. The former is found to have played a major role in winding down the Cold War in favour of détente (e.g. via arms control). Had there been the requisite political will, it might even have assumed the role of a regional collective security organisation in the wake of the Cold War, but it was effectively sidelined by the great powers, especially those of the West. Hence, the OSCE’s main contributions to regional security are today found in such fields as conflict prevention and the promotion of democracy and human rights. The paper then analyzes the contributions of both the CSCE and the OSCE to the security of European states in the broad sense of the term: ‘national security’, to which the CSCE particularly contributed in the form of arms control, disarmament, conflict prevention and human security, with the OSCE investing substantial efforts in the latter, both directly in the form of mediation and various field missions and indirectly via the promotion of human rights and democracy. Finally, a brief survey is provided of the new security challenges facing Europe after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the ensuing ‘war on terror.’...

January 28, 2010
Crisis States Research Centre // London School of Economics // Development Studies Institute

Abstract:

The paper analyses the European Union as a successful peace project which has managed to transform most of Europe into a security community. It further looks at the progressive enlargement of the EU, not only promoting prosperity and democracy but also spreading the foundations for a stable peace. It is this paper’s main argument that this has been the EU’s principal contribution to peace in Europe, it also records how the organisation has gradually ‘branched out’ into the field of traditional security politics, by coordinating foreign and security policies as well as, more recently, by developing a genuinely common security and defence policy – the latest offspring of which is EU military missions. The more it prioritises this in the future, the more it is likely that it will become a competitor of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and its leading member, the United States, which has so far played the role of a military underpinning of an EU that deliberately neglected military matters....

January 28, 2010
Crisis States Research Centre // London School of Economics // Development Studies Institute

Abstract:

Economic initiatives' have become a fashionable tool for resolving armed conflicts. For example, it is now common to hear in policy circles that if people can be given 'an economic stake in their own future', then the costs of a turn or return to violence will be sufficiently high that violence will become much less likely. More generally, many have come to believe that economic initiatives (broadly, sanctions or the threat of sanctions, aid, investment and favourable trading arrangements, or the promise of these) can provide effective incentives for giving up - or abstaining from - violence. This paper is intended to give a sense of some of the potential, problems and dilemmas that surround the use of economic initiatives. It is argued here that various kinds of economic initiatives do indeed have an important role to play and that giving people an 'economic stake' can indeed have a significant and helpful impact. At the same time, the paper stresses that it is crucial to understand - and engage with - what are often very complex political processes if the application of economic tools is to have any chance of success. Short-term economic interventions are unlikely to tackle the deep-rooted causes of armed conflicts and may simply 'paper over the cracks'. Moreover, in the absence of robust political and context-specific analysis, economic initiatives can easily exacerbate conflict and reinforce abuse. To guard against these problems, we need a 'political economy' analysis that is political as well as economic. As part of this argument, the paper looks in some detail at two reports that have been influential in promoting the idea that economic initiatives can contribute powerfully to conflict resolution: first, the Portland Trust report 'Economics in Peacemaking: Lessons from Northern Ireland' (May 2007); and second, the Balls/Cunliffe report 'Economic Aspects of Peace in the Middle East' (September 2007), which deals with the Israel/Palestine issue....

January 27, 2010
Royal Institute for International Relations // Egmont

Abstract:

Conventional wisdom has it that conflicts, be it between states or within states, have their own specific historical roots and features. Thus in an attempt to overcome the many antagonisms, underlying these disputes, they should be approached and analyzed on their own merits without undue input from other conflicts. Indeed, there is a lot to be said for such an orthodox approach. Of course for those directly involved their conflict is – understandably – unique and produces untold suffering and misery, in short is a human tragedy. However, even if every dispute undeniably has its own historical context, some benefit could be derived from trying to pinpoint general principles which often emerge and subsequently are reinforced by the simple fact of close observation on the spot during an extended period of time. This method, which obviously has been used in the past but should be pursued with more vigour in the future, could help to facilitate conflict resolution or at least conflict management. For conflicts do have certain features in common, which reoccur frequently. Therefore, by looking at several conflicts with a regional or potentially regional dimension together, maybe certain new options or insights could emerge which might help reduce the complexities underlying these problems, thus facilitating a long-term and durable solution....

February 8, 2010
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit

Abstract:

The microfinance sector in Afghanistan is going through a period of reform. This is due largely to the consequences of an early emphasis on rapidly achieving operational sustainability through growth in client numbers and loans made. This focus reduced attention given to issues of portfolio quality, accountability, and meeting client interests, and was coupled with a lack of acknowledgement of the existing informal credit market. All of this laid the foundation for the current problems that microfinance institutions (MFIs) are facing with increasing client default rates and, in some cases, fraud. AREU research on the impact of microcredit on informal credit systems and rural livelihoods illustrated the viability challenges MFIs were facing. These challenges were linked to having invested little effort in determining the viability of clients by understanding the social and economic contexts in which they were to invest their loans or in offering loan products meeting client needs. This showed a lack of understanding of the interconnections between MFI viability and that of clients. Based on a growing understanding of these connections and recent lags in growth and performance, the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA) has introduced a series of reforms at the sector level to refocus MFIs on quality instead of growth. These reforms include requiring partner MFIs to prepare more reliable business plans, have a trainer on staff to address capacity gaps in management and credit operations, and create internal audit units to improve control systems and reduce opportunities for fraud. To track MFI progress in implementing these reforms, MISFA has institutionalised an MFI report card system....

February 8, 2010
Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre

Abstract:

Despite the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement 9 January 2005, which formally ended the 22-year civil war in Southern Sudan, the frequency and severity of local conflicts increased during 2009. These conflicts are threatening the stability of the South, and ultimately the peace process itself. Widespread insecurity will also make it difficult to hold the planned national elections in April and the 2011 referendum on secession. Land and natural resources are increasingly contested in Southern Sudan and these issues trigger and fuel local violence. The return of internally displaced persons and refugees is also a source of controversy. In addition, partially incompatible interpretations of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army policy of “land belongs to the people” combined with institutional fragmentation further complicate the situation. The underlying drivers of the increased insecurity in Southern Sudan are: a tense political setting; a highly militarised society in terms of access to weapons and a lowered threshold for using violence to settle disputes; and finally, lack of institutional capacity to provide security and to prevent, contain and solve conflict in Southern Sudan. This situation foments the use of violence as a means to further the interests of groups and individuals. The solution lies in a two-stage process starting with short-term robust interventions (combining military deterrence and local systems of negotiation), and effective planning of long-term measures (such as disarmament, land legislation and reform) addressing the underlying factors to this predicament. Only when this first stage is finalised will long-term measures have the desired effect....

February 4, 2010
Conciliation Resources

Abstract:

For many people Somalia is synonymous with violence, warlordism, famine, displacement, terrorism, jihadism, and piracy. Nearly two decades of foreign diplomatic, military and statebuilding interventions have failed to build peace in Somalia. To date none of the governments that have emerged from internationally-sponsored peace processes have succeeded in establishing their authority or broad legitimacy among Somalis. Since 2001 international engagement has deepened the humanitarian and political crisis in southern Somalia, leaving more than three million people in urgent need of humanitarian assistance at the end of 2009. But Somalia is not an entirely lawless and ungoverned land. Over the past 20 years Somali people have used their own resources and traditions of conflict resolution to re-establish security and governance in many communities. Somali-led initiatives have succeeded in building viable political and administrative arrangements to manage conflict and provide security and law that have proved durable. Somali entrepreneurship has also revitalized the economy in many places. This publication examines the multiplicity of international and Somali-led peace initiatives of the past two decades. Violence has intensified in south central Somalia during the lifetime of this project, begging the question whether there has been any peace to study. It is a reflection of the pernicious violence that three authors in this publication requested anonymity. Nonetheless, there are important lessons to be drawn from experiences of Somali peacemaking. The hope is that this publication can help to inform the development of more complementary and effective peacebuilding strategies. This report includes over 30 articles, from interviews with Somali elders and senior diplomats with the AU, IGAD and the UN, to contributions from Somali and international peacemaking practitioners, academics, involved parties, civil society and women’s organizations....

February 4, 2010
The Stanley Foundation

Abstract:

The Stanley Foundation used the occasion of its 50th Strategy for Peace Conference (SPC) at Airlie House Conference Center in Warrenton, Virginia, to go beyond the well-worn debates over which bureaucratic agencies or departments should have more funding or authority, instead addressing the major (often implicit) political/conceptual hurdles still blocking structural changes in US policies and toolkits toward the most fragile, weak, and failing states in the international system. In a Track 1 1/2, not-for-attribution format, participants were asked to assess the core question, “What does it mean for the United States to treat state fragility, in all its forms and guises, as a strategic security challenge on the same order as nuclear proliferation or competition with rising powers such as China?” Whether one calls it effective peacebuilding, effective conflict prevention, sustainable development, state building, or institution building, this conference assumed that the core international security task is for US policies and toolkits to start addressing directly the roots of weakness and conflict, so as to work with the international community to bring the weakest states to a place where they are on an upward, rather than downward, evolutionary path. Across three separate and simultaneous roundtable discussions among US officials, US experts, and experts and officials from the United Nations, Europe, and elsewhere, the 50th annual SPC challenged participants to think about the problem as more than just giving more money to extant bureaucratic structures, or giving new seats on the US National Security Council to currently disempowered actors. Participants were also challenged to go beyond concepts associated with traditional development, which may unduly assume fully functional state structures and/or which may not treat root conflict drivers that continue to render traditional development measures ineffective....

February 2, 2010
Small Wars Journal

Abstract:

As an international military student in Fort Leavenworth, I am constantly exposed to public, US Government and international opinion on how to succeed/just stay afloat and not sink in the quagmire of that perilous place called “Afghanistan”. Ranging from complex solutions like rebuilding the entire state on the western paradigm, to the irresponsible suggestion of adapting the “It is what it is” policy by creating “Chaositan” - they are all out there on the table. However, as already concluded by many intellectuals, the permanent solution to Afghanistan will be the solution which the Afghans want, not what we sitting many a mile away keep conjecturing about. The harsh reality is that the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated as the Taliban are continuously spreading their influence and cashing in on the frustrations of the people - an ideal force multiplier for the insurgents to leverage for furthering their designs. The main reason why the situation has become so precarious is that the bulk of the country, more precisely east and south east consisting of Pashtuns, is convinced that the Taliban are their real saviors and not the apathetic government in Kabul or ISAF forces....

February 5, 2010
Community Security Trust

Abstract:

CST recorded 924 antisemitic incidents in 2009. This is the highest annual total since it began recording antisemitic incidents in 1984, and is 55 per cent higher than the previous record of 598 incidents in 2006. The total of 924 incidents is an increase of 69 per cent from the 2008 total of 546 incidents, and follows two years of falling incident totals in 2007 and 2008. The main reason for this record high is the unprecedented number of antisemitic incidents recorded in January and February 2009, during and after the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The number of incidents recorded did not return to relatively normal levels until April, some three months after the conflict ended. 212 of the 924 antisemitic incidents reported to CST in 2009, or 23 per cent of the total, included a reference to Gaza alongside the antisemitic content, motivation or targeting. 158 of these occurred during January...

February 5, 2010
United Nations Security Council

Abstract:

A top United Nations official today urged a comprehensive, cohesive and broad-based strategy to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia, noting that the continued spread of the scourge points to the limits of a solely sea-based approach. In recent years, pirates operating from Somalia have been hijacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean and holding their crews and cargo for ransom. Charles Petrie, the UN's Deputy Special Representative for Somalia, told a meeting of the Contact Group on piracy off the coast of Somalia that improved coordination between the international maritime community and military forces in the region, among other elements, has contributed to a decline in the rate of successful pirate attacks and raised the cost of pirate operations. “And yet piracy continues to expand further out to sea, at times more than 1,000 nautical miles from the coast of Somalia,” he told the meeting at UN Headquarters. Mr. Petrie added that the rising costs of these attacks are met by ever more innovative financing mechanisms, including the establishment of stock exchanges which allow local investors to earn returns on their ‘investment’ in piracy operations. “These developments highlight the limits of an exclusively sea-based approach and emphasize the need for the international community to continue to deal with the issue of piracy in a comprehensive, cohesive and broad-based approach. “The United Nations remains committed to addressing the problem of piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia holistically, in close coordination with the international community,” he added. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a report issued last November, called for an integrated approach that would strengthen the capacities of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) on land....

February 5, 2010
United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Abstract:

Now is a good time for us to take stock of the past year. On January 20, 2009, the situation in Afghanistan was more precarious than many realized. Our basic strategy needed an overhaul. Our Embassy in Kabul lacked personnel, programs, and resources. The international community perceived that Afghanistan was not a top U.S. priority. Key regional actors, such as China and Russia, as well as Muslim partners, were not engaged in Afghanistan's future. In Washington there was no serious effort at coordination for our civilian effort and no agreed civilian strategy. Our relationship with Afghanistan looks much better than it did at this time last year. We have reclaimed the initiative. We have brought strategic coherence to our non-military efforts; made major changes in our civilian priorities; overcome political crises; greatly increased American civilian resources; and mobilized significant international support for stabilizing Afghanistan....

February 5, 2010
The Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement

Abstract:

On January 12, the Brookings‐Bern Project on Internal Displacement organized a roundtable discussion on the changing security context in Somalia and its implications for humanitarian action. Panelists were Michael O’Hanlon (Brookings Institution), Lauren Ploch (Congressional Research Service), and Walter Kälin (Representative of the United Nations Secretary General). Elizabeth Ferris (Brookings Institution) moderated the discussion. During the panel presentation, some of the main themes that emerged included the growing “education” of extremist groups based on the lessons they have taken away from similar groups in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, the lack of governance, security, and the rule of law have contributed to the increase in piracy and displacement in a climate of impunity. Finally, despite the deteriorating humanitarian situation on the ground, humanitarian assistance has been decreasing....

February 5, 2010
Yesh-Din

Abstract:

The report "Exceptions: prosecution of IDF soldiers during and after the second Intifada, 2000-2007" (hereinafter: "Exceptions"), published by Yesh Din at the end of 2008, provided complete data about the success and failure rate of the Military Police Criminal Investigations Division (MPCID) investigations into suspicions that IDF soldiers and commanders committed criminal offenses against Palestinian civilians and their property in the occupied territories. This datasheet updates the figures published in "Exceptions." The datasheet provides up-to-date data about the investigations since the beginning of the second intifada, including data on the results of the investigation files that opened in the years 2008 and 2009. As we will show below, the figures showed that even after publishing the serious data about the failure rate of the military legal system to protect the population of the occupied territories from crimes committed by members of the security forces, as required by the provisions both of international and Israeli law, there doesn't seem to have been any improvement in the rate of investigations that produce sufficient evidence to serve indictments against suspects....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

The nexus between development, governance and security has become the central focus of the international effort to manage transitions, and peacebuilding is increasingly seen as the collective approach under which the dimensions of conflict management, security, humanitarian action, governance, rule of law, human rights and development can be brought together under one common framework. The international debate about the need for, and appropriate role of, peacebuilding culminated, as the centrepiece of the UN reform proposals of the 2005 World Summit, in the establishment of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. This paper is a modest attempt to take stock of what we know about peacebuilding in general, and the UN Peacebuilding Commission in particular. It aims to suggest how, in the context of the 2010 review process, the United Nations peacebuilding community can identify a few priority areas on which to focus. This paper argues that our understanding of the peacebuilding concept is closely interlinked with our notion of sustainability. It will focus on three challenges that have the potential to significantly improve our peacebuilding practice. These three areas for review are: (1) Improving our understanding of the peacebuilding concept through encouraging formal and informal debate, and the institutionalisation of a specific peacebuilding model in the United Nations; (2) Significantly stepping up efforts to improve system-wide coherence, including our understanding of the limits of coherence; and (4) Meaningfully operationalising the principle of local ownership, including finding more creative ways to balance the need for predictable international models on the one hand, and local context on the other. Taken together, these three challenges represent opportunities for policy action that have the potential to enhance our collective ability to facilitate more sustainable peacebuilding processes....

February 8, 2010
Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit

Abstract:

The microfinance sector in Afghanistan is going through a period of reform. This is due largely to the consequences of an early emphasis on rapidly achieving operational sustainability through growth in client numbers and loans made. This focus reduced attention given to issues of portfolio quality, accountability, and meeting client interests, and was coupled with a lack of acknowledgement of the existing informal credit market. All of this laid the foundation for the current problems that microfinance institutions (MFIs) are facing with increasing client default rates and, in some cases, fraud. AREU research on the impact of microcredit on informal credit systems and rural livelihoods illustrated the viability challenges MFIs were facing. These challenges were linked to having invested little effort in determining the viability of clients by understanding the social and economic contexts in which they were to invest their loans or in offering loan products meeting client needs. This showed a lack of understanding of the interconnections between MFI viability and that of clients. Based on a growing understanding of these connections and recent lags in growth and performance, the Microfinance Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA) has introduced a series of reforms at the sector level to refocus MFIs on quality instead of growth. These reforms include requiring partner MFIs to prepare more reliable business plans, have a trainer on staff to address capacity gaps in management and credit operations, and create internal audit units to improve control systems and reduce opportunities for fraud. To track MFI progress in implementing these reforms, MISFA has institutionalised an MFI report card system....

February 5, 2010
The Jamestown Foundation // Terrorism Monitor

Abstract:

The United States has been pressuring Pakistan for several months to extend its counterinsurgency operations to North Waziristan. The U.S. perspective is that strong militant entities, especially the Haqqani group, the Hizb-i-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmaytar and Taliban forces under Hafiz Gul Bahadur are using the safe haven of North Waziristan to conduct raids on American, NATO and Afghan troops. Pakistan is resisting the immediate expansion of the conflict due to several factors, one of which is that Islamabad feels its military is already overcommitted in South Waziristan, Swat and Malakand and needs time to consolidate the gains it has achieved in these places before undertaking any further operations. More than 150,000 military and paramilitary forces are currently deployed in the tribal agencies and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in order to clear pockets of resistance, prevent the recurrence of militant attacks, and hold the territory that has been cleared until it stabilizes. The military has claimed the capture and killing of hundreds of militants during the operations, but the Taliban’s top leadership and many hard-core militants managed to escape in thickly forested areas or flee to adjoining tribal agencies. Conditions in Bajaur and Momand remain fairly volatile and clashes between security forces and militants are frequently reported. Remote areas of South Waziristan close to the border with North Waziristan continue to provide sanctuary to the Taliban and other militant entities that are now the target of U.S. drones....

February 5, 2010
Center for Global Development

Abstract:

Can brief, foreign-funded efforts to build local institutions have positive effects on local patterns of governance, cooperation, and well-being? Prior research suggests that such small-scale, externally driven interventions are unlikely to substantially alter patterns of social interaction in a community, and that the ability of a community to act collectively is the result of a slow and necessarily indigenous process. We address this question using a randomized field experiment to assess the effects of a community-driven reconstruction (CDR) project carried out by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in northern Liberia. The project attempted to build democratic, community-level institutions for making and implementing decisions about local public goods. We find powerful evidence that the program was successful in increasing social cohesion, some evidence that it reinforced democratic political attitudes and increased confidence in local decision-making procedures, but only weak evidence that material well-being was positively affected. There is essentially no evidence of adverse effects....

February 5, 2010
Netherlands Institute of International Relations // Clingendael Institute

Abstract:

In recent years, the term 'early recovery' has emerged as one of the main topics in the international debate on post-conflict development. While a broad array of concepts and approaches are present in the international arena, there is currently no consensus on what is mean by 'early recovery', both in policy and programmatic terms. To analyze these issues, this study critically discusses, in a first step, the policy strategies and operational frameworks of selected bilateral donors, regional organizations as well as multilateral institutions to disentangle the main background concepts underlying the policy concepts and to inform the reader of the major challenges involved. Key research questions are the relations and trade-offs between the strategic objectives of peace-building as well as security and development, the analytical integration of socio-economic development and conflict, the methodological conceptualization of the 'transition' phase, the trade-offs between short and long-term development objectives, and the challenge of sequence and prioritization....

February 4, 2010
United Nations Children's Fund

Abstract:

The Humanitarian Action Report is UNICEF's only publication dealing specifically with the needs of children and women in emergencies. It spotlights crises that require exceptional support, and additional funding, to save lives and protect children from harm in an increasingly challenging humanitarian environment. This year's report – subtitled 'Partnering for children in emergencies' – says the world is seeing crises exacerbated by larger trends, such as climate change and the international financial downturn, that are beyond the capacity of any one agency to address. The report appeals for nearly $1.2 billion in international donor funding for emergency-response efforts in 28 countries covering six regions – from Eastern Europe to Africa to Asia to Latin America. The funding will be used to support a greater emphasis on emergency preparedness, early warning, disaster risk reduction and rapid recovery....

January 29, 2010
Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation // United Nations University

Abstract:

The diverse impact of small arms and light weapons (SALW) on women, men, girls and boys has rarely been considered in the formulation of small-arms policy, small-arms collection or control, or even in small-arms research. Understanding of how prolific SALW reinforce and maintain gender- and age-specific violence before, during and after conflict has to improve considerably. This policy brief examines the connection between guns and gender and discusses methodological challenges and priorities in gendered small-arms research, policy and advocacy. Stereotypes have to give way to an understanding of the multiple roles of both small-arms users and victims, as gender is only one among many social categories defining individuals’ approaches to and experience of small-arms violence. Fortunately, new and encouraging policy initiatives have emerged, although significant gains are yet to be made towards achieving inclusive policy implementation and improving weapons collection programmes; disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR); and security sector reform (SSR) activities....

January 26, 2010
Council on Asian Transnational Threat Research

Abstract:

Sakina Bibi and Gul Begum had never been to the market before in their lives. Forty-year old Sakina and her daughter in law finally made it out of the tent that had been supplied to them in the camp outside Karachi when their seven children ran out of food. They had a hundred rupees between them and fifty were taken by the rickshaw driver who took them to the market. They had to rely on the shopkeeper for correct change because neither of them could read or write and had not dealt with currency before. The two women are among the hundreds of thousands of displaced who fled their villages in the north and made their way to camps in the South. In their case, the men had sent them ahead while choosing to stay to guard the family property, which they thought would be taken over if they were not there to occupy it. These women, part of the hundreds of thousands of displaced that have been seeking shelter in camps and relatives houses since the onset of fighting between security forces and Taliban militants in 2004, represent the most ignored constituency in the War on Terror. Not only is it nearly impossible to find statistical data on the number of women affected by the conflict that began in Afghanistan and has now bled over to the tribal areas of Pakistan, but few efforts have been made to provide systematic or targeted aid to them. According to piecemeal reports complied by International Aid Agencies like UNIFEM and the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs, nearly 60% of the approximate 2.5 million people displaced by the conflict are women. Like the women whose predicament is presented above, few have ever left their home villages or even their homes unaccompanied by men. Nearly 80% are illiterate and as a group they have the highest maternal mortality rate in all of South Asia. Because they have led such sequestered lives, very few are able to provide for their families in camps and the death of the men in the family has left many without recourse. Many widows who left the tribal areas at the beginning of the conflict have been forced to take shelter and face abuse at the hands of relatives in big cities like Karachi and Lahore. Many have been forced into marriages and many also into beggary and prostitution....

January 21, 2010
United Kingdom Home Office // United Kingdom Border Agency

Abstract:

The Report aims to provide a brief summary of the source material identified, focusing on the main issues raised in asylum and human rights applications. It is not intended to be a detailed or comprehensive survey. For a more detailed account, the relevant source documents should be examined directly.[...] The Report is a collation of material produced by a number of reliable information sources. In compiling the Report, no attempt has been made to resolve discrepancies between information provided in different source documents. For example, different source documents often contain different versions of names and spellings of individuals, places and political parties, etc. COI Reports do not aim to bring consistency of spelling, but to reflect faithfully the spellings used in the original source documents. Similarly, figures given in different source documents sometimes vary and these are simply quoted as per the original text. The term ‘sic’ has been used in this document only to denote incorrect spellings or typographical errors in quoted text; its use is not intended to imply any comment on the content of the material....

January 20, 2010
Human Rights Watch

Abstract:

This report is Human Rights Watch’s twentieth annual review of human rights practices around the globe. It summarizes key human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide, drawing on events through November 2009. Each country entry identifies significant human rights issues, examines the freedom of local human rights defenders to conduct their work, and surveys the response of key international actors, such as the United Nations, European Union, Japan, the United States, and various regional and international organizations and institutions. The Report includes country reports, in addition to the following four reports: "The Abusers’ Reaction: Intensifying Attacks on Human Rights Defenders, Organizations, and Institutions" by Kenneth Roth; "Civilian Protection and Middle East Armed Groups: In Search of Authoritative Local Voices" by Joe Stork; "Abusing Patients: Health Providers’ Complicity in Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment" by Joseph Amon; "In the Migration Trap: Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Europe" by Simone Troller....

February 8, 2010
Small Wars Journal

Abstract:

Recent events in Iran involving the questionable election results that placed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad into his second term as president have raised the levels of public outcry and consternation both inside Iran and internationally. The political pundits and policymakers are speculating on what this means for the future of Iran and how this situation will end. The debate is premature and largely facile at this point, but what is interesting is that the initial Iranian government reaction to the potential insurgency bubbling up from disgruntled Moussavi supporters provides a well-suited test case for some of the commonly accepted counterinsurgency (COIN) tenants. An embryonic insurgent movement borne of deep resentment against the Iranian government and the de facto rulers of Iran, the Supreme Council, coupled with an extremely harsh COIN reaction creates an experimental situation which allows scholars, practitioners, and policymakers a rare opportunity to analyze, in real time, COIN theory....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

The nexus between development, governance and security has become the central focus of the international effort to manage transitions, and peacebuilding is increasingly seen as the collective approach under which the dimensions of conflict management, security, humanitarian action, governance, rule of law, human rights and development can be brought together under one common framework. The international debate about the need for, and appropriate role of, peacebuilding culminated, as the centrepiece of the UN reform proposals of the 2005 World Summit, in the establishment of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. This paper is a modest attempt to take stock of what we know about peacebuilding in general, and the UN Peacebuilding Commission in particular. It aims to suggest how, in the context of the 2010 review process, the United Nations peacebuilding community can identify a few priority areas on which to focus. This paper argues that our understanding of the peacebuilding concept is closely interlinked with our notion of sustainability. It will focus on three challenges that have the potential to significantly improve our peacebuilding practice. These three areas for review are: (1) Improving our understanding of the peacebuilding concept through encouraging formal and informal debate, and the institutionalisation of a specific peacebuilding model in the United Nations; (2) Significantly stepping up efforts to improve system-wide coherence, including our understanding of the limits of coherence; and (4) Meaningfully operationalising the principle of local ownership, including finding more creative ways to balance the need for predictable international models on the one hand, and local context on the other. Taken together, these three challenges represent opportunities for policy action that have the potential to enhance our collective ability to facilitate more sustainable peacebuilding processes....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

Does the liberal peace critique still constitute an undiscovered message in a bottle or does it represent the proverbial elephant in the room when peacebuilding practitioners go about their daily work? There is by now a vast literature ‘out there’, which seeks to uncover and denaturalise the values underpinning contemporary peacebuilding and the activities derived from these particular values. Nevertheless, the peacebuilding enterprise carries on as if the values promoted are indisputable or simply common sense. Regardless of definitional nuances in terms of scope, peacebuilding is seen as synonymous with activities such as the introduction of multiparty elections, security sector reform, rule of law programming, human rights promotion and the introduction of market-based economies. This suggests that there is a glaring gap between the insights from the liberal peace critique on the one hand and the actual peacebuilding practices on the other. Whether the explanation is that these insights have not yet been made available to practitioners or that they have been deemed irrelevant or uncomfortable, is not for me to say. The aim of this paper is merely to start bridging this gap, by way of discussing how some of the central tenets of this academic literature can be brought to bear on the practices of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA). Intended as input into the discussions of the 2010 PBA review, the paper will investigate the following question: what would the process of developing so-called integrated peacebuilding strategies (IPBS) look like, if insights from the liberal peace critique were made endogenous to the practices of the PBA? The hope is that this discussion can constitute a humble contribution to making the PBA’s work geared towards more sustainable outcomes....

February 8, 2010
National Defense Research Institute // RAND Corporation

Abstract:

A critical question surrounding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is Iraq’s internal security and stability. Although the U.S. withdrawal plan is designed with care to avoid weakening Iraq’s security, the end of U.S. occupation may alter the strategies of the main Iraqi political actors, each of which has enough armed power to be able to shatter Iraq’s domestic peace. In view of the potential for insecurity in Iraq, the United States cannot afford to take a passive or reactive stance. To anticipate dangers and act purposefully, U.S. policy-makers need a dynamic analytic framework with which to examine the shifting motivations and capabilities of the actors that affect Iraq’s security. This monograph offers such a framework....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

This paper argues that if the PBC and the PBSO are to avoid longterm institutional decline, they will, over the next five to ten years, need to position themselves to play new roles – in terms of mandate, resources, procedures, and partnerships. Four potential roles are discussed. First, the PBA could seek to lead an integrated approach to conflict prevention – not just lessening the risks of war recurring in countries ‘emerging from conflict,’ but also reducing the chances of an initial outbreak in countries facing an array of destabilizing forces. Second, the PBA could occupy a more central niche in the stabilization and recovery planning process by managing an otherwise- decentralized international civilian-response capacity. Third, the PBA could be tasked with ensuring that donors and aid-receiving post-conflict states live up to commitments found in country-specific peacebuilding ‘compacts,’ which must be arrived at through a more streamlined process. And, fourth, the PBA’s work plan could be tied to the process by which countries ‘graduate’ from the Security Council’s agenda (as distinct from the PBC’s agenda, where such countries may remain for a longer period). The paper identifies the pedigree of all four proposals, which have surfaced from time to time, and assesses the chances that future circumstances might prove more conducive to their enactment....

February 4, 2010
Conflict and Health // BioMed Central

Abstract:

Access to HIV and malaria control programmes for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) is not only a human rights issue but a public health priority for affected populations and host populations. The primary source of funding for malaria and HIV programmes for many countries is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund). This article analyses the current HIV and malaria National Strategic Plans (NSPs) and Global Fund approved proposals from rounds 1-8 for countries in Africa hosting populations with refugees and/or IDPs to document their inclusion. The review was limited to countries in Africa as they constitute the highest caseload of refugees and IDPs affected by HIV and malaria. Only countries with a refugee and/or IDP population of [greater than or equal to]10,000 persons were included. NSPs were retrieved from primary and secondary sources while approved Global Fund proposals were obtained from the organisation's website. Refugee figures were obtained from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' database and IDP figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. The inclusion of refugees and IDPs was classified into three categories: 1) no reference; 2) referenced; and 3) referenced with specific activities....

January 29, 2010
Households in Conflict Network // Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex

Abstract:

We use experimental data from 35 randomly selected communities in Burundi to examine the impact of exposure to conflict on social-, risk- and time preferences. These types of preferences are important as they determine people’s propensity to invest and their ability to overcome social dilemmas, so that changes therein foster or hinder economic growth. We find that conflict affects preferences. Individuals that have been exposed to greater levels of violence display more altruistic behavior towards their neighbors, are more risk seeking, and have higher discount rates. Adverse, but temporary, shocks can thus alter savings and investments decisions, and potentially have long-run consequences....

January 29, 2010
Households in Conflict Network // The Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex

Abstract:

We analyse the effect of violence and rebellion on the evolution of household welfare. We collected new panel data for Burundi (1999-2007) in which we reinterviewed original as well as newly formed households (split-offs). We use several definitions of the household as unit of analysis and test for resource pooling between parental and split-off households. Focusing on the effect of civil war, we find that villagelevel violence, measured as the number of battle-related deaths or wounded reduces consumption growth by 9% for every 25 casualties. Joining an armed rebel group was a lucrative livelihood strategy: households of which at least one member joined an armed group experienced 41% higher growth in welfare over the study period. Results are robust to alternative variables of civil war shocks and model specifications, including household fixed effects and initial household fixed effects....

January 20, 2010
Human Rights Watch

Abstract:

This report is Human Rights Watch’s twentieth annual review of human rights practices around the globe. It summarizes key human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide, drawing on events through November 2009. Each country entry identifies significant human rights issues, examines the freedom of local human rights defenders to conduct their work, and surveys the response of key international actors, such as the United Nations, European Union, Japan, the United States, and various regional and international organizations and institutions. The Report includes country reports, in addition to the following four reports: "The Abusers’ Reaction: Intensifying Attacks on Human Rights Defenders, Organizations, and Institutions" by Kenneth Roth; "Civilian Protection and Middle East Armed Groups: In Search of Authoritative Local Voices" by Joe Stork; "Abusing Patients: Health Providers’ Complicity in Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment" by Joseph Amon; "In the Migration Trap: Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Europe" by Simone Troller....

January 20, 2010
Human Security Report Project

Abstract:

Challenging a number of widely held assumptions about global trends in wartime violence, this report reveals that nationwide mortality rates actually fall during most wars. Several interrelated long-term changes have been driving this counterintuitive development: i) The average war today is fought by smaller armies and impacts less territory than conflicts of the Cold War era. Smaller wars mean fewer war deaths and less impact on nationwide mortality rates. ii) Dramatic long-term improvements in public health in the developing world have steadily reduced mortality rates in peacetime—and saved countless lives in wartime. iii) Major increases in the level, scope, and effectiveness of humanitarian assistance to war-affected populations in countries in conflict since the end of the Cold War have reduced wartime death tolls still further. These findings stand in sharp contrast to the images of contemporary warfare presented in the media that focus primarily on a relatively small number of wars that have huge reported death tolls—Iraq, Darfur, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are cases in point. The high death toll estimates in Iraq and Darfur have become a source of intense controversy. But, the survey-based claim by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) that an astonishing 5.4 million people have died as a consequence of the fighting in the DRC has attracted almost no public criticism. However, in what is the most comprehensive analysis to date of the IRC’s methodology, we demonstrate that the IRC’s 5.4 million estimate is far too high. We further argue that estimating excess war deaths—which include those from war-exacerbated disease and malnutrition, as well as war-related injuries—is a task so fraught with challenges that it can rarely succeed....

February 8, 2010
Human Rights Watch

Abstract:

By the end of the 1990s, Bahrain appeared to have cast off what had been a well-deserved reputation as a country that routinely tortured detainees. The government had taken significant steps to curtail the use of torture and other ill-treatment by its security officials, and reports of such practices became a rarity. This report concludes, however, that since the end of 2007, officials again have used torture and ill-treatment, particularly during the interrogation of security suspects. Human Rights Watch’s conclusion is based on interviews with former detainees and others, as well as its review of government documents. This reversion to past practices came as political tensions rose in Bahrain. Street demonstrations involving young men from the country’s majority Shia Muslim community protesting alleged discrimination by the Sunni-dominated government deteriorated with increasing regularity into confrontations, sometimes violent, with security forces. Arrests often followed. Security officials appear to have utilized a specific repertoire of techniques against many of those arrested designed to inflict pain and elicit confessions. These techniques included the use of electro-shock devices, suspension in painful positions, beating the soles of the feet (falaka), and beatings of the head, torso, and limbs. Some detainees also reported that security officials had threatened to kill them or to rape them or members of their families. Many detainees were subjected to more than one of these practices. The use of these techniques, separately and in combination, violates Bahrain’s obligations as a state party to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture) and other international treaties, as well as the prohibition of torture in Bahraini law....

February 5, 2010
United Nations General Assembly

Abstract:

This Paper describes Israel’s process for investigating alleged violations of the Law of Armed Conflict. It focuses in particular on investigations, legal proceedings, and lessons learned in relation to the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in Gaza from 27 December 2008 through 18 January 2009 (the “Gaza Operation,” also known as “Operation Cast Lead”). Israel’s system for investigating alleged violations of the Law of Armed Conflict is comparable to the systems adopted by other democratic nations, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Canada. The Paper notes that Israel has demonstrated its ability and its commitment to pursue serious criminal charges to uphold the Law of Armed Conflict, a commitment which has been confirmed by outside observers and foreign legal systems....

February 5, 2010
Community Security Trust

Abstract:

CST recorded 924 antisemitic incidents in 2009. This is the highest annual total since it began recording antisemitic incidents in 1984, and is 55 per cent higher than the previous record of 598 incidents in 2006. The total of 924 incidents is an increase of 69 per cent from the 2008 total of 546 incidents, and follows two years of falling incident totals in 2007 and 2008. The main reason for this record high is the unprecedented number of antisemitic incidents recorded in January and February 2009, during and after the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The number of incidents recorded did not return to relatively normal levels until April, some three months after the conflict ended. 212 of the 924 antisemitic incidents reported to CST in 2009, or 23 per cent of the total, included a reference to Gaza alongside the antisemitic content, motivation or targeting. 158 of these occurred during January...

February 5, 2010
Yesh-Din

Abstract:

The report "Exceptions" reveals for the first time full data on how the Israeli military law enforcement agencies (the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division (MPCID), the Military Prosecution and the Courts-Martial) process cases in which IDF soldiers commit offenses against Palestinians and their property. The report offers the first opportunity to examine the quality of the military criminal system's operations in relation to offenses by soldiers against Palestinian civilians, and it includes the details of each case heard by the Courts-Martial on offenses committed from the outbreak of the second Intifada on September 29, 2000 through the end of 2007. When criminal offenses committed by IDF soldiers against Palestinians are exposed to the public and draw a public response, the IDF leadership and heads of the Israeli political system are quick to label such actions as "exceptional incidents," and to promise to hold the perpetrators fully accountable. Israel’s official spokespeople go to great lengths to persuade the Israeli public and international community that such incidents are rare and that they are treated aggressively. But this report shows that the "exceptions" are actually those cases in which soldiers and officers who commit crimes against Palestinian civilians are investigated and prosecuted. Even more exceptional are the cases in which heavy sentences are imposed on the perpetrators for their crimes....

February 3, 2010
Human Rights Watch

Abstract:

Between 2003 and 2006 the Colombian government implemented a demobilization process for 37 armed groups that made up the brutal, mafia-like, paramilitary coalition known as the AUC (the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia). The government claimed success, as more than 30,000 persons went through demobilization ceremonies, pledged to cease criminal activity, and entered reintegration programs offering them training, work, and stipends. Since then, the government has repeatedly said that the paramilitaries no longer exist. But almost immediately after the demobilization process had ended, new groups cropped up all over the country, taking the reins of the criminal operations that the AUC leadership previously ran. Today, these successor groups are quietly having a dramatic effect on the human rights and humanitarian situation in Colombia. Of particular concern, as documented extensively in this report, the successor groups are engaging in widespread and serious abuses against civilians, including massacres, killings, rapes, threats, and extortion. They have repeatedly targeted human rights defenders, trade unionists, displaced persons including Afro- Colombians who seek to recover their land, victims of the AUC who are seeking justice, and community members who do not follow their orders....

February 8, 2010
Institute for Security Studies, The Hague

Abstract:

How has such a diversely used and fiercely contested concept as ‘human security’ retained and redirected so much attention? The paper looks at the emerging concept, as variously articulated and used in UNDP, Japan, Canada, Norway, and elsewhere, with reference to various roles that such a concept plays in establishing a discursive field: 1) to provide a shared language, to highlight and proclaim a new focus in investigation; 2) to guide evaluations; 3) to guide positive analysis; 4) to focus attention in policy design; and 5) to motivate action. It looks at how the concept is used differently, according to the context of the analyst and the case which is analysed; and it identifies and critically reviews some major criticisms of the concept, notably the attack by MacFarlane and Khong on the broad UN version....

August 31, 2009
Shanghai Institute for International Studies

Abstract:

Human security concept since its debut has been widely concerned and attached great importance as well as criticized as much. This article has made a systematic account of the contention on the values of human security in terms of its definition, connotation, values, application and so on. There are two disagreements, the author believes, regarding respectively the values of human security concept, and the UNDP definition of human security concept. Both represent the different, subjective cognitions on the connotation of the security and are stamped with the values of different social strata. The contention, whatsoever, is helpful to the international community in rethinking the traditional security concept, and laying the basis for establishing a new human security concept....

August 27, 2009
International Review of the Red Cross

Abstract:

The ‘direct participation’ exception to the principle of distinction, found in Article 51(3) of Protocol I and Article 13(2) of Protocol II, embodies a long-recognized concept in the laws governing armed conflict. For centuries the broad notion that humanity demands the protection only of those citizens who are harmless has found expression in the rules and norms relating to war. This article traces the historical factors and trends which influenced the development of the ‘direct participation’ exception in its current form, revealing a tendency towards ‘humanizing’ the law in favour of civilians, notwithstanding their increased military value. International humanitarian law is predicated on a delicate equilibrium between the competing demands of military necessity and humanity. In the development of any norm of international humanitarian law the challenge is, as stated in the 1868 St Petersburg Declaration, to establish ‘the technical limits at which the necessities of war ought to yield to the requirements of humanity’. This subtle balancing act finds expression in Article 51(3) of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which provides that civilians are protected from attack ‘unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities’....

June 19, 2009
Reuters

Abstract:

Reuters Global News Blog provides in depth analysis and opinion pieces of relevant issues relating to international affairs.

March 23, 2009
The Jamestown Foundation // Global Terrorism Analysis

Abstract:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s September announcement that he had sought the support of Saudi Arabia and other key actors to engage Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar with the intent of establishing a formal dialogue to end the violence in Afghanistan appears to mark a major shift in Kabul’s position on the Taliban. Karzai’s efforts have culminated in Saudi-mediated peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban in Mecca in late September and a three-way meeting between Karzai, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. A second round of talks is just getting underway in Saudi Arabia (Daily Times [Lahore], November 16; Al-Arabiya, November 23). Karzai later admitted that he had been seeking the assistance of Saudi Arabia—one of only three countries to have maintained diplomatic relations with the Taliban prior to the 9/11 attacks - to help broker formal talks with the Taliban for over two years. [1] In a November 16 statement, the Afghan president upped the ante by issuing an offer of protection for Omar and even the prospect of Taliban representation in his government in exchange for a peace deal (Dar al-Hayat, November 20; Pakistan News.net, November 16). To refute allegations from his detractors who see him as an American agent with little control of his own country, Karzai added that those in the international community who disapprove of his efforts to engage the Taliban can either remove him from power or leave Afghanistan (Frontier Post [Peshawar], November 17; Daily Times, November 19)....

February 5, 2010
The Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement

Abstract:

On January 12, the Brookings‐Bern Project on Internal Displacement organized a roundtable discussion on the changing security context in Somalia and its implications for humanitarian action. Panelists were Michael O’Hanlon (Brookings Institution), Lauren Ploch (Congressional Research Service), and Walter Kälin (Representative of the United Nations Secretary General). Elizabeth Ferris (Brookings Institution) moderated the discussion. During the panel presentation, some of the main themes that emerged included the growing “education” of extremist groups based on the lessons they have taken away from similar groups in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, the lack of governance, security, and the rule of law have contributed to the increase in piracy and displacement in a climate of impunity. Finally, despite the deteriorating humanitarian situation on the ground, humanitarian assistance has been decreasing....

February 4, 2010
United Nations Children's Fund

Abstract:

The Humanitarian Action Report is UNICEF's only publication dealing specifically with the needs of children and women in emergencies. It spotlights crises that require exceptional support, and additional funding, to save lives and protect children from harm in an increasingly challenging humanitarian environment. This year's report – subtitled 'Partnering for children in emergencies' – says the world is seeing crises exacerbated by larger trends, such as climate change and the international financial downturn, that are beyond the capacity of any one agency to address. The report appeals for nearly $1.2 billion in international donor funding for emergency-response efforts in 28 countries covering six regions – from Eastern Europe to Africa to Asia to Latin America. The funding will be used to support a greater emphasis on emergency preparedness, early warning, disaster risk reduction and rapid recovery....

February 3, 2010
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Abstract:

In recent years, a complex range of challenges to principled humanitarian action and to the ability of those affected by crisis to access protection and assistance has emerged. While such challenges have always existed, the changing nature of conflict, the post-9/11 global political landscape (i.e. the harnessing of humanitarian vocabulary and techniques in support of military and foreign policy objectives, a renewed vigour in asserting state sovereignty, and the push for ‘coherence’ in the UN’s engagement in conflict-affected countries) have combined to contribute to a substantial shift in the operating environment for UNHCR and other humanitarian actors. These developments have been described as contributing to a ‘shrinking’ of humanitarian space. From the perspective of aid worker security, there is ample evidence that humanitarian space is indeed diminishing. A recent report from the Overseas Development Institute confirmed that there has been a significant rise in the number of attacks in which aid workers were killed, kidnapped or injured, from 35 in 1997 to 155 in 2008. There has been a particularly marked increase over the last three years. In the last eighteen months alone, three UNHCR staff members were killed in the course of duty, and two held as hostages for extended periods. But humanitarian space should not be assessed with reference to aid worker security alone. The last ten years have also seen an increasing disregard for international humanitarian law in the context of asymmetric conflicts in which fragmented irregular armed groups use attacks on civilians and civilian shields as tools of warfare, and state actors engage in disproportionate and indiscriminate methods of warfare....

February 3, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

The changing nature of armed conflict has resulted in increased need to safeguard civilians, including humanitarian personnel, which is reflected in the emerging protection of civilians agenda. This report considers to what extent the issues raised in the recently updated OCHA Aide Memoire reflect the security needs of aid workers on the ground, by examining the case of Darfur. By performing a within-case analysis, this study portrays the humanitarian workers’ own perspective of the micro-dynamics of security in Darfur. It argues that the principles of humanitarian action, such as neutrality, impartiality and independence, provide protection and are pivotal for humanitarian security. However, these principles do not protect against all threats and need to be supplemented by other strategies such as protective walls, unarmed guards, barbed wire and security training. On the other hand, relying too heavily on such measures may diminish security as aid workers are alienated from the local population. This is because proximity to the population is perceived as the most important measure for security. On the backdrop of these findings, the Aide Memoire should focus more on the principles of humanitarian action. In cases where UN peacekeepers are not perceived as neutral, such as Darfur, UN forces should focus more on area protection rather than protecting humanitarian convoys. In addition, the Aide Memoire should stress the importance of mandatory security training for all aid workers, and should outline more clearly the repercussions for host governments that deliberately fail to ensure unimpeded humanitarian access....

February 2, 2010
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Abstract:

Ongoing conflict in the last 19 years continued to generate mass movements of Somali refugees fleeing to neighboring countries (560,716 as at the end of December 2009, mainly hosted in Kenya, Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Tanzania and Uganda) and internally displaced people (1.4 million, settled mainly in Somaliland and South-Central regions). In 2009, over 120,000 Somalis sought refuge in neighboring countries. Since the eruption of violence between government forces and armed opposition groups in May 2009, over a quarter of a million people were displaced from their place of residence in Mogadishu....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

Does the liberal peace critique still constitute an undiscovered message in a bottle or does it represent the proverbial elephant in the room when peacebuilding practitioners go about their daily work? There is by now a vast literature ‘out there’, which seeks to uncover and denaturalise the values underpinning contemporary peacebuilding and the activities derived from these particular values. Nevertheless, the peacebuilding enterprise carries on as if the values promoted are indisputable or simply common sense. Regardless of definitional nuances in terms of scope, peacebuilding is seen as synonymous with activities such as the introduction of multiparty elections, security sector reform, rule of law programming, human rights promotion and the introduction of market-based economies. This suggests that there is a glaring gap between the insights from the liberal peace critique on the one hand and the actual peacebuilding practices on the other. Whether the explanation is that these insights have not yet been made available to practitioners or that they have been deemed irrelevant or uncomfortable, is not for me to say. The aim of this paper is merely to start bridging this gap, by way of discussing how some of the central tenets of this academic literature can be brought to bear on the practices of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA). Intended as input into the discussions of the 2010 PBA review, the paper will investigate the following question: what would the process of developing so-called integrated peacebuilding strategies (IPBS) look like, if insights from the liberal peace critique were made endogenous to the practices of the PBA? The hope is that this discussion can constitute a humble contribution to making the PBA’s work geared towards more sustainable outcomes....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

This paper argues that if the PBC and the PBSO are to avoid longterm institutional decline, they will, over the next five to ten years, need to position themselves to play new roles – in terms of mandate, resources, procedures, and partnerships. Four potential roles are discussed. First, the PBA could seek to lead an integrated approach to conflict prevention – not just lessening the risks of war recurring in countries ‘emerging from conflict,’ but also reducing the chances of an initial outbreak in countries facing an array of destabilizing forces. Second, the PBA could occupy a more central niche in the stabilization and recovery planning process by managing an otherwise- decentralized international civilian-response capacity. Third, the PBA could be tasked with ensuring that donors and aid-receiving post-conflict states live up to commitments found in country-specific peacebuilding ‘compacts,’ which must be arrived at through a more streamlined process. And, fourth, the PBA’s work plan could be tied to the process by which countries ‘graduate’ from the Security Council’s agenda (as distinct from the PBC’s agenda, where such countries may remain for a longer period). The paper identifies the pedigree of all four proposals, which have surfaced from time to time, and assesses the chances that future circumstances might prove more conducive to their enactment....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

Different theories of international relations, institutions, and organizations have insights into both the constraints the new UN peacebuilding architecture is likely to face, as well as potential ways of overcoming some of them. Emphasising that the UN remains a state-centric organization marred by political frictions, political realists would focus on the importance of leadership, interestingly echoed in the June 2009 Secretary-General’s report. Rational institutionalists tell us that issue linkage should be pursued in heterogeneous institutions, something the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) should explicitly try to foster. Public choice analysts would advise that one recognize, and try to work within, the structure of institutional interests, by developing indicators of performance that are outcomes, rather than processoriented. Organization theorists highlight the limited repertoire of possible policy options and the means-driven nature of many decisionmaking processes, calling for outside appraisals and deliberate efforts to break routines and engage in forms of broad-based self-reflection. Constructivists emphasize the importance and potential power of ideas in framing discourse and shaping debates, and would advise that the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), the Working Group on Lessons Learned (WGLL), or some other entity might become locations for the generation of new ideas about peacebuilding. In the final analysis, the success of the UN peacebuilding architecture will not be determined by the number of countries requesting its institutions’ assistance or the size of its operating budgets, but by the added value it provides. There is an extraordinary wealth of experience concerning the challenges of peacebuilding within the UN system, if it could only be mobilized in a systematic manner....

February 5, 2010
United States Department of Defense

Abstract:

Q General, can you give us an update Marja offensive, the plans? Have the operations begun? Where does that stand? GEN. MCCHRYSTAL: What we're doing in the Helmand River valley writ large, we really started last summer increasing security in a number of areas. You saw where the Marines went in. And British forces, Danish forces, Estonian forces went in. And they started to create a series of secure -- bubble security zones -- pretty classic counterinsurgency. But they were not contiguous, not connected. So what we're doing is, we're expanding that, increasing the areas that will be under government of Afghanistan control. The big thing that I am most happy about where we are now is the progress with Afghan national security forces being in the lead. I probably misspoke there, because it's more than Afghan national security forces. It's Afghan government. So the planning that we've gone for here has actually been led by the governor, supported by the aligned ministries. And they started from rear to front, in terms of operation. They started with the build, planned the build, planned the hold, planned the clear and then the shape, which is actually the way you need to think through, so you don't get partway. So the planning is in great shape. I went through a number of recent planning events with them. And I'm very confident and very impressed with where they are, particularly the partnership....

February 5, 2010
United Nations Security Council

Abstract:

A top United Nations official today urged a comprehensive, cohesive and broad-based strategy to fight piracy off the coast of Somalia, noting that the continued spread of the scourge points to the limits of a solely sea-based approach. In recent years, pirates operating from Somalia have been hijacking ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean and holding their crews and cargo for ransom. Charles Petrie, the UN's Deputy Special Representative for Somalia, told a meeting of the Contact Group on piracy off the coast of Somalia that improved coordination between the international maritime community and military forces in the region, among other elements, has contributed to a decline in the rate of successful pirate attacks and raised the cost of pirate operations. “And yet piracy continues to expand further out to sea, at times more than 1,000 nautical miles from the coast of Somalia,” he told the meeting at UN Headquarters. Mr. Petrie added that the rising costs of these attacks are met by ever more innovative financing mechanisms, including the establishment of stock exchanges which allow local investors to earn returns on their ‘investment’ in piracy operations. “These developments highlight the limits of an exclusively sea-based approach and emphasize the need for the international community to continue to deal with the issue of piracy in a comprehensive, cohesive and broad-based approach. “The United Nations remains committed to addressing the problem of piracy and armed robbery off the coast of Somalia holistically, in close coordination with the international community,” he added. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in a report issued last November, called for an integrated approach that would strengthen the capacities of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) on land....

February 8, 2010
International Center for Transitional Justice

Abstract:

Efforts underway to address the 2008 Kenyan post-election crisis and the conditions that caused it have provided the country with a unique opportunity to address its long history of human rights violations. From the unspeakable atrocities of the pre-independence State of Emergency period, to the dark years of the repressive one-party state, to the emergence of state-sponsored ethnic violence in the 1990s, Kenya’s democratic institutions and its framework for human rights enforcement have tended to be unable to stem the tide of human rights problems. In some cases, democratic institutions, such as the police and the judiciary, have even been co-opted into the service of repression. The post-election crisis has brought into sharp focus the urgent need to fundamentally review the entire edifice of governance in Kenya as it relates to security, human rights, the rule of law, and democracy. The cornerstones of this ongoing reform process are the interlinked issues of transitional justice and constitutional change. While transitional justice refers to the set of activities and processes that can bring closure to the memory of past injustices and atrocities, constitutional change speaks to the need to create a new, democratic and human rights-responsive framework of governance. The two processes are now running concurrently as stipulated by Agenda IV of the Agreement on the Principles of Partnership of the Coalition Government (popularly known as the National Accord), which brought an end to the post-election violence (PEV). [...] This briefing paper is a synthesis and analysis of the eight presentations and the ensuing debate which took place among the broader group of 25 participants. It explores several questions among them: What is the state of security and the security sector in Kenya? What have been the outcomes of SSR measures undertaken so far? What approaches for security sector transformation are desirable for Kenya and how might they be pursued? What kind of linkages are policy-makers making between SSR and other issues in the governance realm?...

February 5, 2010
United Nations General Assembly

Abstract:

This Paper describes Israel’s process for investigating alleged violations of the Law of Armed Conflict. It focuses in particular on investigations, legal proceedings, and lessons learned in relation to the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in Gaza from 27 December 2008 through 18 January 2009 (the “Gaza Operation,” also known as “Operation Cast Lead”). Israel’s system for investigating alleged violations of the Law of Armed Conflict is comparable to the systems adopted by other democratic nations, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and Canada. The Paper notes that Israel has demonstrated its ability and its commitment to pursue serious criminal charges to uphold the Law of Armed Conflict, a commitment which has been confirmed by outside observers and foreign legal systems....

February 5, 2010
Foreign Policy Research Institute

Abstract:

Sovereignty is the bedrock of international law. If security requires that the United States transgress sovereign borders to attack foreign fighters and their support networks hiding in third countries, then the U.S. should adopt a strategy to amend international law accordingly. One should not be too quick, however, to disregard a robust notion of sovereignty, a concept that has helped avert conflict among the world’s major powers. The United States needs a strategy for sovereignty’s future that is based in the emerging security context and a prioritization of American interests. Instead, the United States and the rest of the world are meandering toward a less robust sovereignty with weaker and more ambiguous international law. The U.S. and its global interests would be better served by strong and clear international rules that increase predictability and that confer legitimacy to action against dangerous enemies....

February 5, 2010
Yesh-Din

Abstract:

The report "Exceptions" reveals for the first time full data on how the Israeli military law enforcement agencies (the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division (MPCID), the Military Prosecution and the Courts-Martial) process cases in which IDF soldiers commit offenses against Palestinians and their property. The report offers the first opportunity to examine the quality of the military criminal system's operations in relation to offenses by soldiers against Palestinian civilians, and it includes the details of each case heard by the Courts-Martial on offenses committed from the outbreak of the second Intifada on September 29, 2000 through the end of 2007. When criminal offenses committed by IDF soldiers against Palestinians are exposed to the public and draw a public response, the IDF leadership and heads of the Israeli political system are quick to label such actions as "exceptional incidents," and to promise to hold the perpetrators fully accountable. Israel’s official spokespeople go to great lengths to persuade the Israeli public and international community that such incidents are rare and that they are treated aggressively. But this report shows that the "exceptions" are actually those cases in which soldiers and officers who commit crimes against Palestinian civilians are investigated and prosecuted. Even more exceptional are the cases in which heavy sentences are imposed on the perpetrators for their crimes....

February 5, 2010
Yesh-Din

Abstract:

The report "Exceptions: prosecution of IDF soldiers during and after the second Intifada, 2000-2007" (hereinafter: "Exceptions"), published by Yesh Din at the end of 2008, provided complete data about the success and failure rate of the Military Police Criminal Investigations Division (MPCID) investigations into suspicions that IDF soldiers and commanders committed criminal offenses against Palestinian civilians and their property in the occupied territories. This datasheet updates the figures published in "Exceptions." The datasheet provides up-to-date data about the investigations since the beginning of the second intifada, including data on the results of the investigation files that opened in the years 2008 and 2009. As we will show below, the figures showed that even after publishing the serious data about the failure rate of the military legal system to protect the population of the occupied territories from crimes committed by members of the security forces, as required by the provisions both of international and Israeli law, there doesn't seem to have been any improvement in the rate of investigations that produce sufficient evidence to serve indictments against suspects....

February 4, 2010
Integrated Regional Information Networks // UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Abstract:

From the Shiite rebellion in Saada in the north to the surge of secessionist movement in the south and the dangerous alliance forged between tribes and Al-Qaeda in the east, one factor unites analyses of the forces pulling Yemen apart: the failure of its economy. “In my view, the root cause of all the problems from Saada to secession to Al-Qaeda is poverty,” Abdel Karim Aryani, long-time adviser to Yemen’s president, told IRIN. “No-one gets recruited free of charge. There is a religious appeal, but that only builds on people’s lack of income.” An international conference in London last week called for “urgent and concrete action” by Yemen to address “conditions conducive to radicalization and instability”. “The challenges in Yemen are growing and, if not addressed, risk threatening the stability of the country and broader region,” said the closing statement by a coalition of Arab and Western nations, including the UK, the USA and Saudi Arabia. However, some say the job is made difficult by some daunting economic indicators....

February 4, 2010
Bipartisan Policy Center // Stabilizing Fragile States Project // National Security Initiative

Abstract:

Terrorist threats continue to emanate from Yemen not because the government lacks the military strength to eradicate them, but because until recently the regime had little incentive to confront al-Qaeda or resolve the myriad of social, economic, and political problems that have encouraged extremism to flourish there. The counterterrorism offensive begun in December 2009, while effective and welcome, only serves to highlight the lack of successes in years past. Ali Abdullah Saleh, the President of the Republic of Yemen, has compared the difficulty of governing his country to "dancing with snakes". It is an equally apt description, however, of the governing style he has inherited. History, demography and geography have conspired to bequeath Yemen a legacy of factionalism and civil conflict, distrust and resource competition. Over the years, the rulers of the multiple political entities that now form present-day Yemen all found it easier to maintain a semblance of stability by playing various factions against each other in an effort to ensure that no one ever grew powerful enough to challenge the regime. Saleh has continued this practice, particularly in regards to al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. For most of the last decade, Yemen has carefully calibrated and controlled the threat of terrorism to reap the greatest advantage....

February 3, 2010
International Alert

Abstract:

Gold and various metals of the tin group (cassiterite, coltan, niobium and tungsten) have been mined in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since the beginning of the 20th century. The mining sector was heavily affected by the disintegration of the Congolese state, by widespread corruption and by the destruction of local infrastructure. The national mining companies in the eastern DRC (OKIMO, SOMINKI) collapsed during the 1990s, leaving the way open for informal artisanal mining, in which thousands of miners were employed. The wars waged in North and South Kivu and Ituri between 1996 and 2003 strengthened the illegal character of artisanal mining and fueled the formation of militias who exploited their control of the mines in order to raise the funds necessary for their own economic survival and arms purchases. In a situation where insecurity and illegality fed on each other, the mining economy became a particularly opaque conflict economy (“conflict minerals”). The eastern DRC became an area of uncontrolled extraction of raw materials, organised by local and regional interests operating with actors in the international market....

February 3, 2010
International Alert

Abstract:

This second issue of International Alert, Uganda’s Investing in Peace briefing paper series reviews the current status of oil exploration, plans for production, and the policy environment for managing oil in Uganda. Its focus is on the potential for oil to trigger or exacerbate violent conflict in Uganda at different levels: national, local and cross-border with neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Alert’s research suggests that conflict risks associated with oil have to date been overlooked. Yet even at its current early stage of pre-production, oil has already contributed to an increase in tensions. Moreover there is every danger that this could intensify as the sector moves into production and as new blocks are explored in the future. In order to contribute to the broader effort of harnessing Uganda’s oil for peace and development, this report promotes greater understanding of such conflict risks as an essential first step towards mitigation. It is Alert’s view that with a “conflict-sensitive” approach to developing the industry, any future conflict related to oil can be avoided....

February 2, 2010
Amnesty International

Abstract:

Between April and July 2009, police officers raided villages in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, forcibly evicting people from their homes, burning down houses and destroying their belongings, gardens and livestock. These incidents took place in the “special mining lease” (SML) area within which the Porgera Joint Venture (PJV) operates one of the largest mines in the country. The area most affected by the police raids was Wuangima, which is situated next to the underground mining operations of the Porgera mine. Wuangima had long been occupied by families from three sub-clans – the Uape, Lakima and Wangalo sub-clans. Adult residents had been born and raised in the area and had been raising their own families in houses in Wuangima at the time of the police raids. Those who lost their homes included families with young children, pregnant women, elderly people and employees of PJV. Other villages within the SML area also faced violence, including Kulapi and Mungalep. On 11 May 2009, Amnesty International issued a public statement expressing concern for the human rights of those affected by the police activity. It called for immediate action to stop the forced evictions, remedy the violations that had occurred and prevent further human rights abuses. Between 18 August 2009 and 2 October 2009, Amnesty International conducted further investigations into the human rights situation of those affected by the police brutality. Amnesty International visited Porgera, inspected the burned remains of houses and spoke to many of the people directly affected by the forced evictions, including villagers who had previously occupied the area. Amnesty International also interviewed police officials, other government officers, medical personnel, politicians, religious leaders, landowners, women leaders, and other community members....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

The nexus between development, governance and security has become the central focus of the international effort to manage transitions, and peacebuilding is increasingly seen as the collective approach under which the dimensions of conflict management, security, humanitarian action, governance, rule of law, human rights and development can be brought together under one common framework. The international debate about the need for, and appropriate role of, peacebuilding culminated, as the centrepiece of the UN reform proposals of the 2005 World Summit, in the establishment of the UN Peacebuilding Commission. This paper is a modest attempt to take stock of what we know about peacebuilding in general, and the UN Peacebuilding Commission in particular. It aims to suggest how, in the context of the 2010 review process, the United Nations peacebuilding community can identify a few priority areas on which to focus. This paper argues that our understanding of the peacebuilding concept is closely interlinked with our notion of sustainability. It will focus on three challenges that have the potential to significantly improve our peacebuilding practice. These three areas for review are: (1) Improving our understanding of the peacebuilding concept through encouraging formal and informal debate, and the institutionalisation of a specific peacebuilding model in the United Nations; (2) Significantly stepping up efforts to improve system-wide coherence, including our understanding of the limits of coherence; and (4) Meaningfully operationalising the principle of local ownership, including finding more creative ways to balance the need for predictable international models on the one hand, and local context on the other. Taken together, these three challenges represent opportunities for policy action that have the potential to enhance our collective ability to facilitate more sustainable peacebuilding processes....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

Does the liberal peace critique still constitute an undiscovered message in a bottle or does it represent the proverbial elephant in the room when peacebuilding practitioners go about their daily work? There is by now a vast literature ‘out there’, which seeks to uncover and denaturalise the values underpinning contemporary peacebuilding and the activities derived from these particular values. Nevertheless, the peacebuilding enterprise carries on as if the values promoted are indisputable or simply common sense. Regardless of definitional nuances in terms of scope, peacebuilding is seen as synonymous with activities such as the introduction of multiparty elections, security sector reform, rule of law programming, human rights promotion and the introduction of market-based economies. This suggests that there is a glaring gap between the insights from the liberal peace critique on the one hand and the actual peacebuilding practices on the other. Whether the explanation is that these insights have not yet been made available to practitioners or that they have been deemed irrelevant or uncomfortable, is not for me to say. The aim of this paper is merely to start bridging this gap, by way of discussing how some of the central tenets of this academic literature can be brought to bear on the practices of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture (PBA). Intended as input into the discussions of the 2010 PBA review, the paper will investigate the following question: what would the process of developing so-called integrated peacebuilding strategies (IPBS) look like, if insights from the liberal peace critique were made endogenous to the practices of the PBA? The hope is that this discussion can constitute a humble contribution to making the PBA’s work geared towards more sustainable outcomes....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

This paper argues that if the PBC and the PBSO are to avoid longterm institutional decline, they will, over the next five to ten years, need to position themselves to play new roles – in terms of mandate, resources, procedures, and partnerships. Four potential roles are discussed. First, the PBA could seek to lead an integrated approach to conflict prevention – not just lessening the risks of war recurring in countries ‘emerging from conflict,’ but also reducing the chances of an initial outbreak in countries facing an array of destabilizing forces. Second, the PBA could occupy a more central niche in the stabilization and recovery planning process by managing an otherwise- decentralized international civilian-response capacity. Third, the PBA could be tasked with ensuring that donors and aid-receiving post-conflict states live up to commitments found in country-specific peacebuilding ‘compacts,’ which must be arrived at through a more streamlined process. And, fourth, the PBA’s work plan could be tied to the process by which countries ‘graduate’ from the Security Council’s agenda (as distinct from the PBC’s agenda, where such countries may remain for a longer period). The paper identifies the pedigree of all four proposals, which have surfaced from time to time, and assesses the chances that future circumstances might prove more conducive to their enactment....

February 8, 2010
Norsk Utenrikspolitisk Institutt // Norwegian Institute of International Affairs

Abstract:

Different theories of international relations, institutions, and organizations have insights into both the constraints the new UN peacebuilding architecture is likely to face, as well as potential ways of overcoming some of them. Emphasising that the UN remains a state-centric organization marred by political frictions, political realists would focus on the importance of leadership, interestingly echoed in the June 2009 Secretary-General’s report. Rational institutionalists tell us that issue linkage should be pursued in heterogeneous institutions, something the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) should explicitly try to foster. Public choice analysts would advise that one recognize, and try to work within, the structure of institutional interests, by developing indicators of performance that are outcomes, rather than processoriented. Organization theorists highlight the limited repertoire of possible policy options and the means-driven nature of many decisionmaking processes, calling for outside appraisals and deliberate efforts to break routines and engage in forms of broad-based self-reflection. Constructivists emphasize the importance and potential power of ideas in framing discourse and shaping debates, and would advise that the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), the Working Group on Lessons Learned (WGLL), or some other entity might become locations for the generation of new ideas about peacebuilding. In the final analysis, the success of the UN peacebuilding architecture will not be determined by the number of countries requesting its institutions’ assistance or the size of its operating budgets, but by the added value it provides. There is an extraordinary wealth of experience concerning the challenges of peacebuilding within the UN system, if it could only be mobilized in a systematic manner....

February 5, 2010
Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi

Abstract:

There have been 63 United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions since the UN’s inception in 1945. The number of operations has increased steadily over the years and at present almost 116,000 personnel are serving on 17 peacekeeping operations led by the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UN DPKO). In addition to these missions, there are also 15 special political and or peace-building missions under the management of the UN’s Department of Political Affairs. This paper seeks to evaluate the UN approach to peacekeeping and peacebuilding in post-conflict environments. This will be done by looking at three case-studies; the UN missions in Timor-Leste, Nepal and Liberia. These case studies provide an insight into the UN approach in both an Asian and an African context. All three countries being considered are emerging from prolonged periods of political instability and armed conflict. Despite their geographical polarity and the fact that the situation in Liberia is particularly complex, they face very similar challenges. This paper also looks at possible alternatives to UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions with a view to establishing if there are organizations or other interested parties, which may be more effective than the UN in terms of bringing stability to post-conflict environments. The issue of sovereignty will also be considered with the aim of assessing whether the international community’s current stance on this issue is hampering the UN’s ability to fulfill mission mandates...

February 4, 2010
Conflict and Health // BioMed Central

Abstract:

Access to HIV and malaria control programmes for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) is not only a human rights issue but a public health priority for affected populations and host populations. The primary source of funding for malaria and HIV programmes for many countries is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund). This article analyses the current HIV and malaria National Strategic Plans (NSPs) and Global Fund approved proposals from rounds 1-8 for countries in Africa hosting populations with refugees and/or IDPs to document their inclusion. The review was limited to countries in Africa as they constitute the highest caseload of refugees and IDPs affected by HIV and malaria. Only countries with a refugee and/or IDP population of [greater than or equal to]10,000 persons were included. NSPs were retrieved from primary and secondary sources while approved Global Fund proposals were obtained from the organisation's website. Refugee figures were obtained from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' database and IDP figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. The inclusion of refugees and IDPs was classified into three categories: 1) no reference; 2) referenced; and 3) referenced with specific activities....

February 4, 2010
Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre // IDMC

Abstract:

Displacement as a result of armed conflict and human rights violations continues in Myanmar. Between August 2008 and July 2009, an estimated 75,000 people from ethnic minority communities in eastern Myanmar were forced to flee their homes. In several areas it is impossible to estimate the number of internally displaced people (IDPs). In October 2009, it was estimated there were at least 470,000 IDPs in rural areas of eastern Myanmar. Here, conflict between the Tatmadaw (the Myanmar Armed Forces) and ethnic insurgent groups has intensified since June 2009, as a result of government plans to transform armed opposition groups which have agreed ceasefires into Tatmadawcommanded Border Guard Forces in the run-up to planned 2010 elections. During 2009, displacement was most prevalent in the Shan and Kayin/Karen States, where the IDP populations were reportedly 135,000 and 125,000 respectively. In several parts of Myanmar, coercive measures such as forced labour and land confiscation, often part of state-sponsored development initiatives, have also caused displacement. IDPs living in conflict-affected areas of Myanmar are vulnerable and in need of security, food, shelter, health and education. With the exception of the Ayerarwady/Irrawaddy delta, devastated by Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, humanitarian access remains tightly controlled. International awareness of the nature and extent of conflict-induced displacement remains limited....

February 3, 2010
Human Rights Watch

Abstract:

Between 2003 and 2006 the Colombian government implemented a demobilization process for 37 armed groups that made up the brutal, mafia-like, paramilitary coalition known as the AUC (the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, or United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia). The government claimed success, as more than 30,000 persons went through demobilization ceremonies, pledged to cease criminal activity, and entered reintegration programs offering them training, work, and stipends. Since then, the government has repeatedly said that the paramilitaries no longer exist. But almost immediately after the demobilization process had ended, new groups cropped up all over the country, taking the reins of the criminal operations that the AUC leadership previously ran. Today, these successor groups are quietly having a dramatic effect on the human rights and humanitarian situation in Colombia. Of particular concern, as documented extensively in this report, the successor groups are engaging in widespread and serious abuses against civilians, including massacres, killings, rapes, threats, and extortion. They have repeatedly targeted human rights defenders, trade unionists, displaced persons including Afro- Colombians who seek to recover their land, victims of the AUC who are seeking justice, and community members who do not follow their orders....

February 3, 2010
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Abstract:

In recent years, a complex range of challenges to principled humanitarian action and to the ability of those affected by crisis to access protection and assistance has emerged. While such challenges have always existed, the changing nature of conflict, the post-9/11 global political landscape (i.e. the harnessing of humanitarian vocabulary and techniques in support of military and foreign policy objectives, a renewed vigour in asserting state sovereignty, and the push for ‘coherence’ in the UN’s engagement in conflict-affected countries) have combined to contribute to a substantial shift in the operating environment for UNHCR and other humanitarian actors. These developments have been described as contributing to a ‘shrinking’ of humanitarian space. From the perspective of aid worker security, there is ample evidence that humanitarian space is indeed diminishing. A recent report from the Overseas Development Institute confirmed that there has been a significant rise in the number of attacks in which aid workers were killed, kidnapped or injured, from 35 in 1997 to 155 in 2008. There has been a particularly marked increase over the last three years. In the last eighteen months alone, three UNHCR staff members were killed in the course of duty, and two held as hostages for extended periods. But humanitarian space should not be assessed with reference to aid worker security alone. The last ten years have also seen an increasing disregard for international humanitarian law in the context of asymmetric conflicts in which fragmented irregular armed groups use attacks on civilians and civilian shields as tools of warfare, and state actors engage in disproportionate and indiscriminate methods of warfare....

February 3, 2010
The Equal Rights Trust

Abstract:

The Rohingya are one of the most vulnerable communities in the world today. Stripped of their nationality and subject to widespread persecution in their native Myanmar, they have travelled far and wide over the past forty years, desperately seeking refuge and a better life. They are stateless, without a legal nationality, and many are also refugees. Bangladesh, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia have been preferred destinations of this community in flight, but for the vast majority, their suffering has not ended upon reaching new shores. All too often, the Rohingya experience of life is a cycle of acute discrimination, escape, trafficking, poverty, detention, extortion and deportation.[...] This report documents the ways in which immigration related laws, practices and policies of Malaysia are discriminatory and detrimental to the rights and well-being of all irregular migrants in the country. The Rohingya are merely one – albeit particularly vulnerable – group amongst many others. By focussing on the Rohingya in Malaysia, this report raises grave human rights concerns about the treatment of all irregular migrants in the country. It also establishes the need for a robust, holistic and regional solution to the problems faced by the Rohingya, which is embedded in human rights principles....

February 3, 2010
International Security Assistance Force // North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Abstract:

This presentation provides an overview of the current capacity, capabilities and intentions of the insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan [as of 22 December 2009]. It focuses in particular on Taliban strategy and goals, noting that while the insurgency is loosly organized, it is increasingly effective and growing more cohesive, enabled by weakness in the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Security force capacity has lagged behind a growing insurgency, and perceived insurgent success will draw foreign fighters, making it harder for security force capacity to catch up....

January 29, 2010
Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation // United Nations University

Abstract:

The diverse impact of small arms and light weapons (SALW) on women, men, girls and boys has rarely been considered in the formulation of small-arms policy, small-arms collection or control, or even in small-arms research. Understanding of how prolific SALW reinforce and maintain gender- and age-specific violence before, during and after conflict has to improve considerably. This policy brief examines the connection between guns and gender and discusses methodological challenges and priorities in gendered small-arms research, policy and advocacy. Stereotypes have to give way to an understanding of the multiple roles of both small-arms users and victims, as gender is only one among many social categories defining individuals’ approaches to and experience of small-arms violence. Fortunately, new and encouraging policy initiatives have emerged, although significant gains are yet to be made towards achieving inclusive policy implementation and improving weapons collection programmes; disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR); and security sector reform (SSR) activities....

January 21, 2010
Amnesty International

Abstract:

This briefing note details existing and new information about recent arms supplies, training and other assistance to the security forces of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG). It summarises Amnesty International’s concerns about the lack of international human rights standards and effective accountability with regard to this international military and policing assistance, given the dire human rights situation in Somalia. Amnesty International is concerned that: weapons and ammunition are transferred to Somalia’s TFG without adequate safeguards to ensure that they will not be used in committing human rights abuses; training is provided to the TFG security forces without these being subjected to adequate vetting and oversight procedures; some of the training is planned without proper notification to the UN Sanctions Committee, therefore undermining the UN arms embargo on Somalia; no adequate training is provided in international human rights and humanitarian law. Since the appointment in January 2009 of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed as President of Somalia's TFG, pledged and actual international support for Somalia's army, police forces and other security sector institutions has grown....

January 8, 2010
Oxfam International // tearfund // ICCO // Christian Aid // International Rescue Committee // World Vision // Save the Children // Secours Catholique // Cordaid // Handicap International

Abstract:

Sudan is at a crossroads and the next 12 months could determine the future of Africa’s largest nation. In January 2005, the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signalled a new era of hope. The agreement – between Sudan’s central government and the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) – brought a formal end to a devastating civil war, which left around two million people dead and four million displaced from their homes. The CPA brought significant, if fragile, gains for southern Sudan, including the establishment of the semiautonomous Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS); significant improvements in security in some areas; the return of many displaced people and refugees to their homes; and the expansion of local markets and trade. Five years later, the peace agreement is extremely fragile and violence is again increasing. The humanitarian situation, already one of the worst in the world, is deteriorating; and in the eyes of most ordinary southerners, meaningful post-war development has been absent....

January 6, 2010
International Journal of Conflict and Violence

Abstract:

The majority of those living in the border region of Kenya, Sudan, and Uganda are pastoralists, whose livelihoods are dictated by the upkeep and size of their herds. Harsh environmental conditions force pastoralists to migrate in search of water and pasturelands during the dry season. With limited access to water and competing rights to land, inter-tribal conflict arises when pastoralists from one tribe enter the territory of another. The increased availability of small arms in the region from past wars increasingly makes ordinary clashes fatal. Governments in the region have responded with heavy-handed coercive disarmament operations. These have led to distrust and subsequent violent clashes between communities and security providers. This report reviews the scale, consequences of, and responses to the many pastoral conflicts, utilizing methodological tools such as key informant interviews, retrospective analy¬sis, and a thorough review of available literature....

February 8, 2010
National Defense Research Institute // RAND Corporation

Abstract:

A critical question surrounding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is Iraq’s internal security and stability. Although the U.S. withdrawal plan is designed with care to avoid weakening Iraq’s security, the end of U.S. occupation may alter the strategies of the main Iraqi political actors, each of which has enough armed power to be able to shatter Iraq’s domestic peace. In view of the potential for insecurity in Iraq, the United States cannot afford to take a passive or reactive stance. To anticipate dangers and act purposefully, U.S. policy-makers need a dynamic analytic framework with which to examine the shifting motivations and capabilities of the actors that affect Iraq’s security. This monograph offers such a framework....

February 8, 2010
Congressional Research Service

Abstract:

Al Qaeda (AQ) has evolved into a significantly different terrorist organization than the one that perpetrated the September 11, 2001, attacks. At the time, Al Qaeda was composed mostly of a core cadre of veterans of the Afghan insurgency against the Soviets, with a centralized leadership structure, made up mostly of Egyptians. Most of the organization’s plots either emanated from the top or were approved by the leadership. Some analysts describe pre-9/11 Al Qaeda as akin to a corporation, with Osama Bin Laden acting as an agile Chief Executive Officer issuing orders and soliciting ideas from subordinates. Some would argue that the Al Qaeda of that period no longer exists. Out of necessity, due to pressures from the security community, in the ensuing years it has transformed into a diffuse global network and philosophical movement composed of dispersed nodes with varying degrees of independence. The core leadership, headed by Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, is thought to live in the mountainous tribal belt of northwest Pakistan, where it continues to train operatives, recruit, and disseminate propaganda. But Al Qaeda franchises or affiliated groups active in countries such as Yemen and Somalia now represent critical power centers in the larger movement. Some affiliates receive money, training, and weapons; others look to the core leadership in Pakistan for strategic guidance, theological justification, and a larger narrative of global struggle. Over the past year senior government officials have assessed the trajectory of Al Qaeda to be “less centralized command and control, (with) no clear center of gravity, and likely rising and falling centers of gravity, depending on where the U.S. and the international focus is for that period.” While a degraded corporate Al Qaeda may be welcome news to many, a trend has emerged over the past few years that some view as more difficult to detect, if not potentially more lethal. [...] The focus of this report is on the history of Al Qaeda, actions and capabilities of the organization and non-aligned entities, and an analysis of select regional Al Qaeda affiliates. This report may be updated as events warrant....

February 8, 2010
Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre

Abstract:

Calls for increased Western military support to Yemen to prevent the spread of terrorism are alarming. The cause of Yemen’s political crisis is not the rise of al-Qaeda or a lack of military power, but a gradual erosion of state authority. Kjetil Selvik argues that the survival strategies of the Yemeni regime have contributed to the weakening of the state, triggering a Zaydi Shia rebellion in the north and separatist currents in the south. Seeking to fight al-Qaeda by propping up Ali Abdullah Saleh’s repressive regime is therefore likely to produce counterproductive results. Western governments would be wise not to deepen the country’s crisis by intervening militarily or further strengthening the repressive apparatus of the regime. Trying to enforce state authority in the absence of national unity and political legitimacy is what created the impasse in the first place....

February 5, 2010
The Jamestown Foundation // Terrorism Monitor

Abstract:

In the early days of jihad in Kashmir, between 1988 and 1990, more than 150 groups surfaced on the jihadist scene. Some of these groups united to form bigger groups such as Hizb ul-Mujahideen, but most of them simply disappeared. Some of those which still exist are mere shadows of their past and have very few followers. None except the Hizb ul-Mujahideen have the capability of carrying out militant operations inside Indian-administered Kashmir on their own. Some of these groups collaborate occasionally with Pakistani groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba to justify their existence. This factsheet includes a brief description of: Hizbul Mujahideen; Ansar ul-Islam and Jamiat ul-Mujahideen; Sectarian Jihadist Groups; Harakat ul-Jihad al-Islami and its Deobandi Offshoots; Jaish-i-Mohammad; 9/11 and the Deobandi Jihadist Groups; Markaz Dawat wal Irshad and Lashkar-e-Taiba....

February 5, 2010
Government of the United Kingdom // United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

Abstract:

This document highlights the discussions and comments made at The London Conference, including the following topics: security; development and governance; and regional cooperation/international architecture. The Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the international community met today in London to renew their mutual commitment towards helping Afghanistan emerge as a secure, prosperous, and democratic nation. Today’s Conference represents a decisive step towards greater Afghan leadership to secure, stabilise and develop Afghanistan. The international community underlined its support for the Government of Afghanistan and its security, development and governance....